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PRESENTED BY 



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Wi:nEAMkSt 



THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 




Thk ArTHOR : TraveIv in Thk vSnowv Andes. 



THE GREAT 
PACIFIC COAST 

twelfb: thousand miles in the 
golden ivest 

BEING AN ACCOUNT OF LIFE AND TRAVEL IN THE 

WESTERN STATES OF NORTH AND SOUTH 

AMERICA, FROM CALIFORNIA, BRITISH 

COLUMBIA, AND ALASKA : TO MEXICO, 

PANAMA, PERU AND CHILE; AND A 

STUDY OF THEIR PHYSICAL 

AND POLITICAL 

CONDITIONS 



C'^^KEGINALD KNOCK. F.R.G.S. 

AUTHOR OF "THE ANDES AND 1 lU.' ^ M/.ON," " PERU," "MEXICO," ETC. 



WITH SIXir-FOUR FULL-PyiGE ILLUSTRATIONS 
AND- A MAP 



NEW YORK 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
1910 



nn:. PLEAS A!?^ ►E^'^S 



Richard Cla,v & Sons, Limited 
15read stkeet hill, e.c., and 

liU.NOAV, SLTKOLK 



TRANSFER 
D. O, PUBLIC LIBIUJIY 



yRANSFERKiJD FHOM PUBUG LIBRARY 



778893 r 



PREFACE 

The purpose of the present work is to treat of the 
vast region of the Pacific Coast of North and South 
America as a physical and political entity, seen from 
the point of view of the observant traveller from jour- 
neys extending over a number of years : a task 
never perhaps attempted before. The excellent recep- 
tion accorded to my former travel books, dealing with 
some of the States of South and North America, is 
borne out by the pile of favourable reviews and of 
numerous letters from readers at home and abroad 
which I have; and the several editions which have been 
reached in a short space : and these seem to oflfer a 
measure of popularity for the present work. To those 
(few) reviewers who have objected to intimate descrip- 
tions I would reply that these books, having at base 
a geographical purpose, are written to interest the 
ordinary reader and student of travel-lore, rather than 
for the scientist. 

The Author. 

London^ October 1909. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

I. "to the uttermost parts of the sea" ... I 

II. the history of the great coast . . . .21 

III. central AMERICA : THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS . . 45 

IV. MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE . . . . '72 

V. CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD I08 

VI. CALIFORNIA : THE LAND OF GIANT TREES, CANONS, AND 

BIG ORANGES 1 33 

VII. THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 153 

VIII. THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT .... 182 

IX. OREGON AND WASHINGTON : THE LANDS OF THE COLUMBIA 

RIVER 195 

X. BRITISH COLUMBIA : THE PACIFIC GATE OF EMPIRE . . 204 

XI. BRITISH COLUMBIA : A BRITISH HERITAGE . . .224 

XII. ALASKA AND THE YUKON : THE LANDS OF THE MIDNIGHT 

SUN 242 

XIII. COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR: THE LANDS OF THE EQUATOR 256 

XIV. PERU: THE LAND OF THE INCAS 270 

XV. CHILE : THE LAND OF THE ENGLISH OF SOUTH AMERICA 322 

XVI. TO SUM UP 342 

INDEX 355 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



These views have been selected to illustrate the book upon a geographical 
basis, and it may be said that they embody a unique collection. 



THE AUTHOR : TRAVEL IN THE SNOWY ANDES 



Frontispiece 



To face 
Page 



PERPETUAL SNOW-CAP IN THE PERUVIAN ANDES : PHOTOS BY 
THE AUTHOR AT I5,000 AND l6,O0O FEET ABOVE SEA- 
LEVEL 6 

THE CAPITAL OF BRITISH COLUMBIA TO 

SAN FRANCISCO, RISEN FROM ITS ASHES 1 4 

MOUNT RAINIER OR TACOMA : THE PATRIARCH OF THE CASCADES 20 

INDIANS OF VANCOUVER ISLAND, BRITISH COLUMBIA, AT THE 

PRESENT TIME . ........ 32 

VIEW ON THE UPPER PART OF THE COLUMBIA RIVER, AT REVEL- 
STOKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA 36 

HARRISON LAKE, BRITISH COLUMBIA, NEAR THE INTERNATIONAL 

BOUNDARY 40 

THE HARBOUR OF PRINCE RUPERT, BRITISH COLUMBIA, NEAR 

THE BORDER WITH ALASKA 42 

NICARAGUA: ENTRANCE TO CORINTO HARBOUR; AND A STREET 

IN THE CITY OF LEON 64 

CITY OF MEXICO: THE CATHEDRAL 76 

MEXICO : PANORAMA OF ZACATECAS, FROM ITS HILLS . . 84 

PREHISTORIC MEXICO. MAYA PYRAMID AND TEMPLE AT CHICHEN- 

YTZA, IN YUCATAN: AND PART OF THE RUINS OF MITLA . I06 

ROCK FORMATION IN THE YOSEMITE VALLEY . . . .112 

HARVESTING IN CALIFORNIA 1 32 

PETROLEUM WELLS NEAR BAKERSFIELD, CALIFORNIA . . -134 

CALIFORNIA : GIANT SEQUOIAS, MARIPOSA GROVE . . . I38 

VIEW IN THE KERN RIVER CANON 140 

ORANGE TREES, MISSION BUILDINGS AND PERPETUAL SNOW . 1 44 

SPANISH MISSIONS OF CALIFORNIA I46 



X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

To /ace 
Page 

AN ORANGE GROVE IN CALIFORNIA 148 

MAGNOLIA AVENUE, RIVERSIDE, CALIFORNIA . . . • 152 
PART OF THE NEW SAN FRANCISCO . . . . • . 180 
THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT : STEAM-PLOUGHING IN CALIFORNIA 190 
SEATTLE, THE GREAT CITY ON PUGET SOUND, STATE OF WASH- 
INGTON: VIEW FROM THE WATER-FRONT .... 202 

BRITISH COLUMBIA, A BRITISH CRUISER IN THE HARBOUR OF 

PRINCE RUPERT ........ 204 

IN THE CANADIAN ROCKIES : CLIMBING A GLACIER . . . 206 
PART OF THE GRANARY OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE: A WHEAT- 
FIELD SEVEN MILES LONG IN MANITOBA .... 2o8 
TIMBER IN BRITISH COLUMBIA : ONE OF THE GREAT TREES IN 

STANLEY PARK 2IO 

FOOD PRODUCTS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA : UNLOADING SALMON 

ON THE FRASER RIVER 212 

AN APPLE ORCHARD AT VERNON, BRITISH COLUMBIA . . 214 
SEA-BATHING AT VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA . . .2X6 

FORESTS OF BRITISH COLUMBIA J A TOWN IN THE MAKING . 2x8 
FAUNA OF BRITISH COLUMBIA IN THE GOVERNMENT MUSEUM 

AT VICTORIA ......... 220 

THE PARLIAMENT BUILDINGS AT VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA . 222 
SHIPPING AT VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA . . . .224 

SAW-MILLS AT NEW WESTMINSTER, BRITISH COLUMBIA . . 226 
THE BEGINNINGS OF A PACIFIC COAST LIVERPOOL : THE PORT OF 

PRINCE RUPERT, TERMINUS OF THE GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC 

RAILWAY .......... 228 

TERMINUS OF THE GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC RAILWAY AT PRINCE 

RUPERT, BRITISH COLUMBIA 230 

FRUIT-GROWING IN BRITISH COLUMBIA 232 

BIG TREES IN STANLEY PARK, VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA . 234 
LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT SUN : DAWSON CITY ON THE CANADIAN 

YUKON : PHOTOGRAPHED AT MIDNIGHT .... 242 

ALASKA: GLACIER NEAR CHILCAT, ON THE ROAD TO KLONDYKE 246 
THE CANADIAN YUKON TERRITORY; WHITE HORSE RAPIDS NEAR 

LAKE BENNETT, ON THE ROAD TO KLONDYKE . . . 250 

ECUADOR : SUNSET NEAR GUAYAQUIL : APPROACHING GUAYAQUIL 260 
ECUADOR: HARVESTING CHOCOLATE ON THE GUAYAS RIVER; 

LANDING CHOCOLATE AT GUAYAQUIL 264 

ECUADOR : PEACE AND WAR, CHIMBORAZO ; REVOLUTION . . 266 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi 

To face 
Page 

QUITO : THE PICTURESQUE CITY ON THE EQUATOR . . . 26S 

THE CAMELS OF THE ANDES: GROUP OF LLAMAS AT CUZCO, PERU 274 
PREHISTORIC PERU AND BOLIVIA: MONOLITHIC DOORWAY AT 

TIAHUANAKO 282 

PREHISTORIC PERU : INCA FORTRESS OF OLLANTAYTAMBO . . 284 
LAKE TITICACA, 12,370 FEET ABOVE SEA-LEVEL. RUSH-WOVEN 

CANOES, AND CONICAL HOUSES OF THE INDIANS . .292 

ABORIGINES OF THE FORESTS OF THE PERUVIAN AMAZON 

TRIBUTARIES 30O 

PART OF THE CITY OF LIMA : A BIRd's-EYE VIEW . . . 304 
THE CITIES OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES : HUARAZ, I0,000 FEET 

ABOVE SEA-LEVEL ........ 308 

THE ANDES : THE HIGH COLD WORLD OF PERPETUAL SNOW . 32O 

TARAPACA : NITRATE-BEARING GROUND AND " OFICINA " . . 324 
GROUP OF CHILEAN ROTOS : THE STURDY PRODUCERS OF THE 

NITRATE 328 

THE NITRATE PORT OF PISAGUA 336 

chile; VALLEY OF THE CACHAPOAL 338 

THE SNOWY ANDES OF CHILE : PEAK OF ACONCAGUA . . 340 
QUECHUAS OF THE PERUVIAN ANDES, IN THE YUCAY VALLEY ; 

AND INCA FORTRESS 342 

VIEW ON THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY AT YALE, BRITISH 

COLUMBIA 348 

BRITISH SEA-POWER ON THE PACIFIC : PART OF ESQUIMALT HAR- 
BOUR, VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA 350 

For some of the foregoing views the author is indebted to the folloiving 

sources : — 

The Southern Pacific Railway Company, San Francisco, Cali- 
fornia ; the Canadian Pacific Railway Co. ; the Grand Trunk Pacific 
Railway Co.; the Nicaragua Development Syndicate Ltd. ; " Modern 
Mexico " ; Seattle Chamber of Commerce ; the Agent-General for 
British Columbia; the Corporation of Foreign Bondholders; the 
National Geographic Magazine, Washington ; the Consul of 
Honduras ; the Lagunas Nitrate Syndicate. 



' TO THE UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA ' 

The great region of the West which Hes upon the Httoral 
of the Pacific Coast of North and South America is always 
associated in our minds with some misty glamour of remote- 
ness, conquest and gold. It appeals to us with a certain 
sense of romance, and yet with a vague sense also of great 
possibilities, as if Nature had kept and hidden on those 
mighty shores something for the people of the east which they 
should obtain by the ardour and energy of their own hearts 
and hands. It is a land of El Dorado, which has drawn men 
forth from Europe and the Atlantic world for four hundred 
years. I do not know if "Westward star does fortune bring " 
in very truth. There are various kinds of fortune, as there 
are various kinds of El Dorados; some of them material, 
some of them less material, but, whether they were one or 
both, they have always held out (and doubtless ever will hold 
out) some strong allurement to the adventurous spirit. 

Back to that stirring age of ocean chivalry the history of 
the Great Pacific Coast takes us ; to that pregnant Columbian- 
Elizabethan time which followed on the giving of America 
to the world. Men were setting forth in caravels to follow 
the trail of the setting sun across the heaving waters of the 
great Unknown. Bold hearts were paramount: with sword 
on hip and gold in sight; the name of Cristo and Maria on 
their lips; with oath and prayer, with cross and steel, away 
they turned their occidental-steering prows — cavalier, boor, 
sea-rover, all — towards the El Dorados of the West. Gold, 
pearls, empires lay there for the taking — what wonder that 
their veins ran wine; what wonder that every sandy bay 
and mountain peak was but the threshold to some golden 

B 



2 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

city, and every orison the prelude to some new empire and 
renown ! 

They were wonderful old fellows, those conquistadores, 
and the memory of their strenuous deeds is imperishable 
upon those mighty shores which face the Pacific sunsets. 
Balboa, JNIagallanes, Cortes, Pizarro do but lead us on to 
Drake and Cook and Franklin ; and all these great names 
did but follow on the result of the greatest geographical 
obsession which the world has ever known, when the crazy 
caravels of Columbus set out towards the West. I have not 
forgotten a doggrel rhyme which I heard in the streets of 
San Francisco and Chicago at the time of the Columbian 
Exposition in 1893 : the four-hundredth anniversary of 
America's discovery. The rhyme was a popular expression 
of this great geographical obsession and its hero — 

"He knew the earth was round 
That land it could be found — 
This geographic, gyratory 
Son of a gun of a navigatory 
Cristofer Colombo ! " 

And as to the matter of great discovery, how strongly one 
fact stands out — the obsessions of single spirits; the con- 
victions of individual men who have believed that some great 
Thing existed, unknown to mankind, which they themselves 
should discover. And discover it they did (and will), spite 
of difficulties, discouragements or slender purses. Neither 
nations nor syndicates perform these things, for Providence 
does not send its subtle ray of imagination and faith to 
governments or limited liability companies, but to the indi- 
vidual spirit; and this it is which is spurred on to action 
and accomplishment. 

But History, which loves to set no limit to its searchings, 
strives to take us back into the mists of time far beyond 
Columbus and the conquistadores and their work of yesterday 
within these Western worlds. It was but four centuries ago 
when European man first beheld the sun to set in the 
Pacific Ocean. What happened here before then? Upon 
these great plains and mighty mountain ranges which face 
the Occident something must have happened between the 
time when the pyramids and towers of Egypt and Babylon 



'UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 3 

were building and the mere yesterday of Columbus. How 
came man upon the littoral of the world of the Andes and 
the Cordilleras? The Garden of Eden and the valley of the 
Euphrates, and Ararat and Babel and Canaan are on the 
other side of the world, fifteen thousand miles away. Yet the 
sun-god of the Chaldeans and the sun-god of the Aztecs and 
the Incas cannot be of separate origins; nor the "Unknown 
God " of the early Mexicans and Peruvians a different spirit 
to that of Asia; nor the pyramids and temples reared to him 
in both worlds of independent conception. It is a fascinat- 
ing thread to follow ; but for the moment we must turn to 
geography. 

It is a lengthy geographical flight, good reader, to which 
I invite your patience and interest in these pages. We must 
survey the world from north to south, and from the Arctic 
Circle and the midnight sun to the equator and Cape Horn. 
From the North-west Passage and Behring Straits down 
past the Canal of Panama to the Straits of Magellan we shall 
have to journey— twelve thousand miles of a sunset littoral 
upon which the surges of the Great Pacific Coast beat cease- 
lessly. From the frigid shores of Alaska our way will He to 
fertile valleys of perpetual spring in paradisial lands (as far 
as nature is concerned) near the equator; and from sun-beat, 
arid deserts we shall ascend to the region of perpetual snows. 
I have watched the sun set in the Pacific from that Isthmus 
of Panama where it was first seen. Behind Colima's smok- 
ing peak upon the Mexican shore I have seen it, two 
thousand miles towards the north ; and yet another two thou- 
sand miles filling up the entrance to the Californian Golden 
Gate. Again, from the deserts and mountains of Peru and 
Tarapaca I have watched the sun-god sink in the Occident. 

Geographically, this long littoral is divided into three 
regions — North America, Central America and South 
America; and ethnologically into two — Anglo-America and 
Spanish America. We shall begin our journey at Panama 
and proceed northwardly up the coasts of Central America, 
Mexico, California, British Columbia and Alaska. Then, 
starting again at Panama, we shall survey southwardly, 
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile. In order to obtain a 
general idea of this great coast and the different political 

B 2 



THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 



and geographical spheres into which it is divided, I will beg 
your attention, good reader, to the following figures which 
give the different Pacific Coast states in sequence, beginning 
at the north. The second and third columns give, respect- 
ively, the general length of their coast-lines, and their 
approximate latitudes : figures which have reference to their 
distances on the Pacific Coast alone. 



Alaska (from Behring Straits) i,8oo miles 

British Columbia 600 „ 
Washington^ 

Oregon j 5 >' 

California 800 ,, 

Mexico 2,000 „ 

Guatemala 160 ,, 

Salvador 190 ,, 

Honduras 50 ,, 

Nicaragua 200 ,, 

Costa Rica 250 ,, 

Panama 400 „ 

Colombia 400 „ 

Ecuador 400 „ 

Peru 1,400 ,, 

Chile 2,700 ,, 



65° 


to 55 


55" 


„ 49' 


49° 


„ 42' 


42° 


„ 33 


33^ 


» 15 



N. 



15 



7 


I 


1° ,. 


3°3o S. 






3 30 » 


19° 



19 



» 56° 



As to the longitude of this vast coast the 166th meridian 
W. cuts the westernmost point of all America, Cape Prince 
of Wales in Alaska abutting on Behring Straits; whilst the 
70th meridian W. divides the Straits of Magellan. This we 
shall recollect is about the longitude of Boston and Quebec, 
which reminds us that nearly the whole of the continent of 
South America lies to the east of North America. 

The Pacific Coast consists, to use the phrase of the engineer, 
of vast sweeping curves and tangents, with a general direction 
of north to north-west. The most remarkable thing about it 
is its freedom from great indentations and consequent lack of 
harbours; that is, in comparison with the shore-lines of the 
other continents of the world. We can easily see the cause 
of this. The whole coast, whether of South or of North 
America, is paralleled by a great mountain chain at a 
relatively short distance inland — the Andes and the Cordillera 
generally of North America. (In this connection I shall use 
the general term of "Cordillera" to describe the mountain 
range of the Pacific coast as an entity. This is a Spanish 



'UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 5 

word, but it is the most appropriate for the purpose.) The 
Cordillera, then, is responsible for the structure of the coast, 
— which does but obey its parent form — the one being, let us 
say. Tertiary; the other, let us say, Quaternary, and the 
long upraised wall which these mountains form has shut off 
the ocean from the interior and given rise to a poverty of 
inlets. This circumstance is of much importance when man 
comes on the sce'ne, for few inlets mean few harbours. 
Throughout the great stretch of coast of nearly eight thousand 
miles from Vancouver to Valparaiso we find only about eight 
really great natural harbours, such as the Columbia River in 
Oregon, San Francisco in California, Acapulco in Mexico, 
Panama, Guayaquil in Ecuador, Payta, Chimbote and Callao 
in Peru. There are, of course, numerous good smaller 
harbours, but the coast, whether in California, whether in 
Peru, is notable for the numerous open roadsteads on surf- 
beat shores, where landing is more or less difficult. 

Thus the Great Pacific Coast consists generally of a strip 
of more or less arid coastal plains, extending for thousands 
of miles, backed by some of the highest mountain ranges in 
the world. The rivers which empty into the Pacific Ocean 
through this wall can almost be counted on the fingers of 
one hand. These are the Yukon in Alaska, the Fraser in 
British Columbia, the Columbia in Oregon, the Colorado, 
emptying into the Gulf of California in Mexico, and the 
Guayas River in Ecuador. 

These considerations bring us naturally to glance at the 
Cordillera system of this great coast; the Andes and their 
continuation, from Patagonia to Alaska. If we were to take 
a sphere or ball with a hard or slightly flexible outside part, 
and cause it to contract from the interior, what would happen ? 
A series of wrinkles would appear upon its surface, their 
form, length and direction depending upon the nature of the 
outside part of this ball. This is what happened to the earth 
in Tertiary times (or thereabouts). The earth contracted, 
and great corrugations appeared upon its surface, perhaps 
rapidly, perhaps by successive stages ; and these are our 
familiar mountains. Among the greatest, most continuous, 
highest and largest of these great wrinkles on the face of 
mother earth are the Andes; the great Cordilleras of South 



6 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

and North America, which encircle nearly a semi-diameter 
of the globe from north-north-west to south-south-east. 

This vast Pacific-fronting Cordillera system, from twelve 
to thirteen thousand miles in length, consists of several 
parallel chains — two, and in places three— divided by great 
plateaux and deep river valleys, whose extremities are formed 
by "knots," or counterforts; the transversal ridges which join 
the ranges to each other. The most marked of these features 
are the sierras and coast ranges of British Columbia and 
California, with their great basins and plateaux going back to 
the Rocky Mountains; the Sierra Madres of Mexico with the 
great Central Plateau; the three paralleling cordilleras of 
the Andes in Peru and Bolivia, enclosing the great plateau 
of Titicaca and the longitudinal valleys of the Amazon 
affluents; and the cordilleras and valleys of Chile. 

Whilst the Rocky Mountains, Coast Ranges and Sierra 
Nevadas of North America are grand and vast in their 
formation, the greatest development of the Cordillera and 
its most stupendous structure has come to being in Ecuador, 
Peru and Bolivia. Here are the highest passes, the highest 
peaks and the greatest expanses of perpetual snow, and, 
incidentally, the highest inhabited places on the globe. 

I have stood upon these white heights of Peru, where the 
hydrographic worlds of East and West meet — for the Andes 
are the divortia aqiiarum, the w^ater-parting of the globe, 
between the Atlantic and Pacific worlds — a score of times, 
perhaps more than any other European. The Andes are a 
veritable psalm in stone, a mighty and glorious entity such as 
Solomon or David might have sung of. Here are, indeed, 
the "treasures of the snow" displayed for the adventurous 
traveller ; here is the perpetual ice-cap of gleaming summits, 
nature's store-houses of moisture, performing an ordained 
and declared function, a mighty hydraulic machine whose 
operation and energy arouse the reverent admiration of the 
human engineer; and whose results render possible for man 
the bounties of seed-time and harvest in the countries at their 
base. Let us consider for a moment, kind reader, the work- 
ing of this stupendous engine. The moisture-laden winds, 
sweeping from the Atlantic Ocean and thence over the 
boundless plain of the Amazon basin, two or three thousand 







Perpetual Snow-Cap in the Peritvian Andes. 
Photos bv the Author at 15,000 and 16,000 feet above sea-level. 



'UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 7 

miles in breadth, impinge upon the intercepting summit of the 
Andes, depositing their moisture as ice and snow thereon 
down to the Hmit of the snow-Hne, and as rain below that. 
These winds do not reach the Pacific Coast, and the littoral 
of Peru and Northern Chile is consequently rainless; but the 
Andine hydraulic machine, nevertheless, fulfils its function 
in the streams which escape down the western slope, which 
provide the means of irrigation and agriculture to the dwellers 
of the coast. This is a somewhat similar working to that 
which takes place in California; the translation of snow- 
flakes into terms of corn, wine and oil. In California and 
British Columbia, however, the conditions are reversed, as 
the prevailing winds come from the west, not the east. 
Associated also with these hydrographic and climatic con- 
ditions are the great ocean currents which impinge upon 
the Pacific Coast, performing important functions in the 
determining of temperature and rainfall, and the anthropo- 
geographical conditions consequent thereon. The great equa- 
torial current, coming from the south, divides, and one fork, 
the Peruvian or Humbolt current, sweeps its cool volume 
along the Pacific Coast of South America until the westward- 
trending bulge of Northern Peru deflects it outwards and 
away. As a result of this and the working of the Andine 
hydraulic engine, the coast of Peru is bare and arid, and the 
coast of Ecuador a tropical jungle. As to the North Pacific 
coast it is the Japan current which influences it. This great 
current, deflected from the coast of Asia between the Philip- 
pines and Japan, is a warm ocean-river flowing northwardly, 
sending one fork along the Kamchatka peninsula into 
Behring Sea and thus to the iVrctic Ocean, along those frigid 
shores of Alaska, which we shall presently visit. But its 
larger branch crosses the North Pacific Ocean, and, splitting, 
curves northwardly to Alaska again, but southwardly also, 
to bathe the shores of that gate of British empire — British 
Columbia — performing for it the same function which the 
Gulf Stream performs for Britain. Thence it joins the 
variable Mexican current, running along the coasts of Cali- 
fornia and jNIexico, where a semi-arid belt is again encoun- 
tered. Thus we see what a remarkable working machine, 
ceaseless in its activity, is the hydrographic system of this 



8 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

great coast, extending over more than twelve thousand miles, 
influencing every kind of climate under the sun, and giving 
origin to, and forming the habitat of, every species of flora 
and fauna from the Arctic Circle to the equator. 

This hemisphere-encircling Cordillera is marked at both 
ends by shattered termini. At the north we have the fjords of 
British Columbia, and the islands, formed of submerged 
mountain tops, of Alaska; and in the south of Chile are 
similar submerged hills and sea-openings. All of these end in 
storms and snow, and mark the line of life-limit of the human 
family; extending thence into the silent untrodden spheres of 
the Arctic and the Antarctic. Nature, at these far extremities, 
of the Great Pacific Coast, has ended her work in a whirl of 
untamed elements, and, "Thus far, and no further," has 
she said to the beings of her final creation. And in her plan 
— benignant or malignant — Nature has used not only ice but 
fire. For she has a girdle about the middle of the great 
Cordillera, a line of appalling volcanoes, whence she has 
flung death and devastation far and wide and told a terrible 
tale of earthquakes and tidal waves. 

I shall shortly describe, in a following chapter, the more 
intimate condition of the snowy regions of this mighty 
Cordillera, which offers alluring ground for the adventurous 
mountain-climber, whether in the north, as Alaska, British 
Columbia or California; whether in the Andes of the south. 
1 have crossed, as before mentioned, these beautiful stupend- 
ous Andes many times and dwelt therein for long periods, 
and from their winds, snows, summits and sunsets have 
imbibed some spirit of mountain-philosophy which remains 
imprinted on my mind. I retain vivid recollections of jour- 
neys across the high ranges of the Andes — journeys accom- 
plished amid the pelting and beating of the incessant snow 
and rain-storms which nature only holds in momentary leash 
upon those inclement ridges of the world's roof. I have 
often had to thank (or blame) myself for difficulties experi- 
enced on such expeditions (I must confess it) from under- 
rating difficulties both of time and space; and these two 
potent masters of circumstance sometimes read the adven- 
turous traveller a lesson. They urge him to recollect that 
there is a golden mean between too much temerity and an 



'UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 9 

overrating of obstacle. Yet I must add that, in my travels, 
I have often found that difficulties were in reality much less 
than appeared before tackling them, or than represented by 
advisers. I do not make this assertion as a mere platitude, 
but as a fact which seems new every time we experience it. 

This great region of the Pacific littoral of America gives 
us food for thought in the matter of the conquest by man of 
nature. Vast areas of the region tributary to it are still 
untouched. We must recollect that in South America we 
are standing upon the edge of the "Dark Continent" of 
America. For South America is the least known, in the 
twentieth century, of all the continents of the world. There 
is more to do there than in Africa. Vast areas have never 
been trodden by the foot of the white man, whilst millions 
of square miles are practically unexplored. An enormous 
zone of territory, from V^enezuela down to Chile, several 
thousand miles in length, is without any settlement of civil- 
ized man, delivered over (what might be an empire of the 
New World) principally to savages and monkeys. Impene- 
trable forests, swollen streams, malarias and the wild denizens 
of the tropics still hold undisputed reign over unexplored 
areas much larger than any existing in Africa. Notwith- 
standing that the cities along the coast, as well as upon the 
northern and eastern side of the continent were built in the 
Columbian era; notwithstanding that the oldest and most 
advanced American civilization— that of the Incas and pre- 
Incas — existed upon its western littoral; notwithstanding its 
wealth of gold, and minerals, and forest reserves, civiliza- 
tion, commerce and enterprise have scarcely done more than 
touch the fringe of the coasts. The largest river in the 
world pierces its very heart from Para to the Peruvian 
Andes — three thousand miles of fluvial highway with fifty 
thousand more of interior natural waterway tributary to it 
from all points of the compass. This is the mighty Amazon 
and its affluents. Yet from its first discovery by the 
Pizarros, and navigation by Orellana, and its descent and 
ascent by Texeira more than three hundred and fifty years 
ago, a single monthly ocean steamer represents the shipping 
from Europe on its upper reaches. A great part of Colombia 
is unknown; huge tracts in Northern Brazil have never been 



10 TIIK (JtKAr PACIFK (OAST 



.s(;<;n by a wliilc man; .'iiid Peru, Holivi/i -ind Iv ii/idor li.ivr 
ahn(>\iiU'.\y iiiUroddcM wilds marl<r-d " iitiftxphHcd " uptiii ilnir 
maps. VVIu'ii v\ill (liis /^danl aw.'iUr;? 

TIm* p('(<pN'S «>l (he world ol lliis lof)^' (o.'isl arc divided, as 
w<; li.'iv<r seen, u\li> two ( \iu\ r.K'",: llic Aiij^lo-Aiiicrif ;iii ;iiid 
(lie Spanisli-Amctrjf .'III. 'Mm; lirs( liold sway from AI.'isU.i (o 
Mcxiro; IIm; Sf'cond from Mrx'no lo ("apct I lorn; .'uifl lliciis 
is dif l.'ir^f'St strclcli ol (r-rrilory ;is r<-^'ards sf-n-froiil, ;il(lioii^;li 
Mol Hm- iiir>s( v.'ilij.'ildr. 'Ilirt most (ypi(al ((jiiiilrics ol llics<; 
n;i(ioii.'di(i<s, rcsp*'( lively, are: lirilisli ( 'oliimhi.'i ,'iiirl Cali- 
loriii.'i ol die while, or Anj^lo-Aiiieri( ,'iii peoples, ;ind Mexico, 
j'eiii, ( olf)iiil>i.'i ;iiid ('liile ol llie Sp.iiii',li-;\ mei ie.iii or p.iilly 

red I.'M e. 

Mm- iMiipireol Uiil.iiii li;r, ;i splendid lieril.'i^^e on lliis co.'isl 
ill r>iili.sli ( iolitml)i;i. and tlie liii^e dominion ol ('aiiada, ol 
wliieli il is IIm! se/i-lronl. Il is ;iii <-iiormoiis re^doii : lo look 
;il llie 111,-ip ol wlii'li ;doiie is lo liic llic (III |iir,i;iMii o| llic 
imperialisl-miiided j^'cf^j^'r.'ijWier iiol iIm- dry-hones |^<;o- 
^raplwrr ol iiwre miisly hool<s, do I iiie/in, hiil llie re;d e;irlli- 
wiiler, who, even il in leiiir, ol ii)eiidi;ui'. ;nid iiioiiiil;iii)s, 
sels loilli llie he.inly oi n.iliire and llie homily ol l'rovid(Mu:e. 
W.'il<e up, IJiil,'iiini;i I llere .'ire ^dorions slrelches of fertile. 
I;ind',, hills ol linihei ;iiid we;i|ih ol iiiiiiei;ils ,-iiid sinilinj^ 
valley.'.. ( 'onie (^iil ol your close ( ilies .'iiid dwell in ihe 1,'ind, 
people of <r)n^(esled liiil.'iiii ! fs llie slar of liril;iin lo wane 
and sel, .'md ihe « onslelLiiions ol .Xippoii, ol lli<- Sl;irs .'iiid 
Stripes, ol llx- leiiion, lo l.il<e iis jjlare, ;ts we .'ir<t lcllin|.j 
oiirs'-lves? It dejjciifis, Ihe pliilosophit ;il ohservr-r </miiol 
hill lliiiil:, njjon oiii Uritisli selves. No r-inpiic in ihe world's 
hi', lory li;is (-vr-r received sneh henelils .'iiid «»|)poi liinilies as 
I'lovidenee and n;iliire ii.'ive beslowed upon lliis empire. No 
n.'ilion li;e, ever li.id llie doininioii ol ;i (|ii;ii(ei (;l the l;iiid 
;ire;i ol ihe ^lohe, emhodyiiii; (oiilineiils ol viijon .'ind leiijlc 
'.oil. Are we m.'ikin^ use o| ihese );ili'.? II iiol, we sh.'ill 

he piiili'.herl loi llie sill ol ( /III i'.'.ioil . Il i'> Iiol eiloii;;li lo 
IlillJ.; OJjeii oill OVe|-',c,'| pOS',es'.ioir, lo llie loieiiMKi hcf.'Mlse 

lie li.'i'. ;i sound hody ;iiid leii doll.iis in his po(l.e|, noi lo 
jp;i'.piiij.; syndic ;ile', nor mere c oiiip.iiiy-a^riciilliiralisls. Wcr 
iiiir.l enc|c)w a new ;iiid vi^c)ic)ii', pe;i',;iiilry cil onr own rac.*; 
willi lliesc' |;ind',; ;i|>porfion e;i( h ih.il .'~)li;ire ol j'.nipire which 



'UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 11 

is his birtliright. If we do not we may suffer. I hope to 
arouse your interest in this matter, good British reader, on 
another page. In Cahfornia there is no need for such a call 
for redistribution of men and land, for the stream of 
American humanity is fast extending westward. 

As to Mexico, nature seems to be holding the land in 
reserve for the developing Spanish-American civilization, of 
which that country is the northern boundary and in some 
respects the main exponent. We have a land of great high 
tablelands, tropic lowlands, and forest areas, interspersed 
with the beautiful buildings of the Aztecs and of the Spaniards 
— a land where the modern seller of foreign goods is strenu- 
ously opening markets among the people who dwell there, 
whether to their benefit or otherwise I will not here undertake 
to suggest. A picturesque, romantic and potential land it 
is, whose future is still a problem. 

In South America very similar conditions hold good — 
Colombia, Peru, Chile; yet all have their individuality and 
separate problems. Peru, in the popular mind, has ever 
been a land of El Dorado. As we behold the country from 
the deck of the approaching steamer, visions of Pizarro and 
the untold gold of the Incas crowd upon us; and raising our 
eyes to that far, blue maritime cordillera of the Andes, which 
arises to the east, we feel some of the charm of the Great 
Unknown which actuated the famous conquistadores of the 
age of ocean chivalry. Beyond that great natural barrier of 
mountains, shutting off the blue Pacific Ocean and the deserts 
of the coast from the interior, lay the strange empire of the 
Incas; soon to fall before a handful of European adventurers. 
This was nearly four centuries ago. What lies beyond it 
to-day? There are gold mines; untold wealth of silver; 
there is copper and coal and quicksilver in abundance; and 
farther on yet there is wealth of rubber and timber and choco- 
late and sugar-cane, great herds of sheep and cattle and 
alpacas, and many other matters of satisfaction to the traveller, 
the capitalist, and the merchant. Upon those high plateaux, 
miles above the level of the sea and beyond the serrated edge 
of the Andes, upon which we are looking, are the beautiful 
old stone temples and palaces of a prehistoric race, some of 
which rival in massiveness and ingenuity the famous monu- 



12 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

ments of Egypt. Upon that great roof of the South 
American world, whose outer edge alone is visible to us from 
the coast, are treasures such as might enrich a whole nation, 
and fill fleets of plate-ships such as Drake and the kings of 
Spain never dreamed of. I have met weary mules staggering 
under the weight of ingots of solid gold and silver, as they 
brushed against me on the mountain trails; whilst in my 
own saddle-bags were plates of gold and bags of gold-dust 
which I had won myself from the rivers and rocks of the 
Andes. And far beyond the great Cordilleras we shall see 
canoe-loads of "black gold," the rubber from the forests, as 
the rubber-gatherer shoots down the rapids of the Amazon 
affluents towards the Iquitos market. The wealth of an 
empire lies within and beyond the Andes and upon the 
Peruvian Amazon, waiting only the set of humanity that 
way, to gather it in for humanity's use. 

As to the origin of man upon this coast, to which I have 
referred earlier, the attention of the student is at once called 
to the analogy between the civilizations of Mexico and Peru, 
of Aztecs, Toltecs and the Incas respectively, and their 
respective environments. In the valley of Mexico — a hydro- 
graphic entity or lake-basin on a high plateau — we find 
pyramids to the sun and to the moon at Teotihuacan ; and 
in Peru (three thousand miles away to the south), temples 
to the sun and to the moon in the region of Lake Titicaca, 
itself also a hydrographic entity upon a high tableland. The 
mystic deity Ea of the Chaldeans and Babylonians might 
seem to be reproduced in the Mexican "unknown god," as 
imagined by Nezahualcoyotol, the Mexican prince-philo- 
sopher (who has been termed the Solomon of Anahuac), in 
pre-IIispanic days ; and the chaste imagery of Huiracocha 
and Pachacamac of the Incas and pre-Incas of Peru. I do 
not think the student of these matters will deny that these 
civilizations came from Asia. But how ? Geography seems 
to point to the approaching shores of Behring Straits, only 
a few miles apart. Probably man (as w^ell as the ancestor of 
the mountain sheep and the American camel, the Llama) came 
that way; perhaps across the ice of those Straits, bearing in 
his bosom some knowledge of a Deity and of the stone- 
shaping arts. 



'UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 13 

The histories of the two main centres of pre-Columbian 
civilization, Mexico and Peru — how were they handed down? 
In Mexico the picture-writing, supplemented by oral descrip- 
tion, formed the literature of the Aztecs, a more or less 
clumsy hieroglyphical method of showing incidents in line 
and colour. Some phonetic signs were in use, such as might 
have formed the basis for the evolution of an alphabet. As 
to Peru, the Incas had no hieroglyphical mode of repre- 
senting incident. Their records were the singular quipos, 
consisting of bundles of knotted cords and strings of different 
colours — every knot and string telling its historical tale under 
the fingers of the historians who were specially trained and 
appointed to this office. Thus the hiatus between the pre- 
Hispanic history of America and its continuity with the 
European advent was bridged over, notwithstanding that the 
Spaniards infamously destroyed knots, papyrus scrolls and 
stone monuments, averring that they were "things of the 
devil." Nature has not spared man's blood in watering the 
territories of her new world. The great wars and conquests 
of the Aztecs over the adjoining tribes in the land of Mexico 
centuries before the advent of Cortes, the subjugation of 
neighbouring civilizations and savages on the slopes and 
plateaux of the Andes by the great Inca emperors centuries 
before Pizarro, show the toll she exacted. That stern and 
unwavering edict, "Whosoever sheds man's blood by man 
shall his blood be shed," was never more realized; and well 
the man of Spanish race in America knows that "El que d 
cuchillo mata, d cuchillo muere ! " The terrible struggle 
before Tenochtitlan,^ in which the waters of the Mexican 
lakes were mixed with Christian and pagan blood, proved 
it. In the Anglo-American portion of the coast nature has 
not required such sanguinary baptisms. Are we to hope that 
such may not be required in the future ? Yet — are these 
possibilities of "yellow peril" in store for the Great Coast? 
Shall Asiatic peoples — who in the past must have played 
some part there — play a more strenuous part in the future? 
The land of the rising sun faces the land of the setting 
sun ! 

Man and nature have both played havoc in the past history 
' The Aztec city of Mexico. 



14 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

of this great coast. Indeed, it is a record of buccaneers 
since the time of Drake, and of earthquakes and tidal waves 
for as long as we know it. The appalling earthquake which 
laid the city of Valparaiso in ruins in August 1906 was 
only one of a series on the Great Pacific Coast ; for San 
Francisco had been devastated just before, in April, whilst 
in January the republic of Columbia suffered. The Val- 
paraiso occurrence did not receive the scientific investigation 
accorded to the San Francisco disaster — the character of the 
two peoples being the determining factors in this. The one 
wrings its hands and its priests importune Heaven for 
clemency ; the other sees only a natural phenomenon, which 
it sets itself to examine. Curiously the Valparaiso shock 
was unaccompanied by a tidal wave, such as in earlier years 
caused such havoc on the Peruvian coast to the north of 
Chile. It was reported at the time that the isle of Juan 
Fernandez — the home of Robinson Crusoe — had been wiped 
out by the same shock, and many felt a pang of regret for 
that island-home where they had lived many days in their 
boyhoods' dreams. But it was neither true nor possible, 
for the island is four hundred miles away from Chile, as 
large as Jersey, and rises three thousand feet above sea- 
level. 

Was it a lesson to the people of San Francisco and Valpar- 
aiso, those terrible visitations? Will they mend their ways 
to a cleaner civilization ? Probably not, or not as a result 
thereof. The modern Anglo-American believes in no such 
divine wrath, and naturally sees in it nothing but a 
phenomenon of nature's forces. How different the Spanish 
peoples on the Great Pacific Coast. In Mexico, or Lima, 
or Valparaiso there was weeping and wailing and gnashing 
of teeth during the visitations; there was self-inflicted 
penance; processions of priests; feverish confessional and 
hasty marriages after clandestine amours ! But the sturdy 
Californian believes that Fleaven helps those who help them- 
selves; and steel and stone are again rising in Babel-towers 
and pyramids beside the Golden Gate. They are beautiful 
buildings, unique examples of man's skill and energy — are 
they but costly food again for earthquake and fire ? Well 
might the dweller of the cities of the Great Pacific Coast, 



\% ^ 




vSan Francisco, Risen from its Ash?:s. 



* UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 15 

Anglo or vSpanish, cast his eyes upwards towards his blue 
sky, and murmur : 

" Cut me not off in the midst of my days : 
Thy years are throughout all generations ! " 

It is recorded that, when the United States' battleships 
made the recent sensational circumnavigation of America 
from New York to San Francisco (and thence around the 
world), as the wave-beaten vessels and sun-tanned crew 
ascended the Mexican coast and approached San Diego, the 
first seaport past the Mexican boundary in California, and 
beheld the hills of the Golden State, that a grizzled quarter- 
master upon the deck said, extending his arms, "There's 
God's own country, and them's God's own peolpe." It was 
a patriotic sentiment, and is a common saying in the United 
States, and probably in this case expressed a sense of sup- 
posed Anglo-American superiority over the Latin races, at 
whose ports the vessels had called from Brazil to Ecuador, 
and where they had received much hospitality. But it is in 
no unkind spirit that the mind of the impartial traveller 
may question whether California and the United States are 
yet, morally, in a condition to lay claim to a monopoly of 
Divine residence there ! The corrupt politicians and the 
grasping millionaires of the United States hardly invite the 
exclusive companionship of the Ark of the Covenant ! The 
soberest and most God-fearing peoples on that coast at 
present are the Canadians; but they do not claim any mono- 
poly of Divine influence there. 

There are wonderful things to be beheld within this sunset 
region. Where else in the world shall we find trees whose 
seeds were first sprouting when the pyramids were being 
built upon the banks of the Nile ? — or when Abraham was 
leaving the Euphrates for the Jordan? Here they are, in 
the grand sequoias, redwoods and pines of California, trees 
four thousand to eight thousand years old, just come to 
maturity ! — which I have fully described in another chapter. 
Where else shall we find a great inland sea, more than two 
miles vertically above sea-level, upon which w'e can sail out 
of sight of land? Here it is in Peru and Bolivia; the great 
Lake Titicaca. Here, too, are railways, the highest in the 



IG THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

world, which take us fr(jm tide-water in a day, up sixteen 
thousand feet on to the very roof of the world, in the region 
of perpetual snow ; such railways as the Oroya railway of 
Peru, and others nearly as high. There are, moreover, earth- 
cirding railways which terminate upon this coast, those 
marvellous highways of the Canadian Pacific and Southern 
Pacific, and others, crossing thousands of miles of continent. 
Worthy of panegyric, deserving of enthusiastic attention are 
the tw'o British railways which cross the broad land of the 
Dominion of Canada to grasp the beating oceans with their 
terminii. From Quebec to Vancouver; from Halifax in Nova 
Scotia to Prince Rupert of the north do wind and stretch these 
mighty ways of steel over a fifth of the globe. The Spanish- 
American journalist or writer can never speak of a railway 
purely as such : the simple nomenclature is insufficient, and 
he terms it generally, "Those bands of steel, linking us with 
the civilization of the world," or words to that effect; and it 
might well be excused any inhabitants of the new Western 
world, whether Canada, California, or Mexico, or Peru to use 
similarly coloured descriptions. For the railway in these 
countries is a living and very palpable matter, far more so 
than in Britain or Europe generally. Unfenced and open to 
the view in the Americas, the railway seems much more a 
part of daily life, running down the main streets of tow'ns, 
prior to crossing mountains and deserts. 

Further, where else can such a profusion of mineral wealth 
be found ? As to the mines of Spanish-American countries, 
Mexico, Colombia and Peru especially, their conditions are 
such that — beware good reader ! for do you lend ear too 
attentively thereto, you might become a gibbering lunatic 
w ithin a week. Why ? — because there are mines upon 
mines ; mines to be had for the picking up, so to speak, mines 
on every hill, honeycombing every lode, mines worked by 
natives and Spaniards and Portuguese centuries ago, and 
abandoned — not because they were worked out, far from it; 
but from other reasons, difficulties which do not now exist. 
There are mines of gold, mines of silver, mines of copper, 
mines of coal ; there are mines walled up by man to hide them 
when he left them himself, and mines walled up by nature in 
rock-slide, snow-slide and vegetation. I have entered mines 



'UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 17 

in fertile valleys where wine-presses are at work, and agri- 
culture flourishes in iields of perpetual spring; where the 
smiles of nature seem 

" Rain-rippled on dim Paradisial bowers." 

I have entered mines in bleak rocky ranges miles above the 
level of the sea where — one would think at first — only a 
mountain goat could climb ; mines which pierce the eternal 
snow-cap with adits and galleries in the bowels of high 
Andine peaks— peaks looking both towards the Atlantic and 
towards the Pacific. Such gold and silver in rocks and earth 
there is as ye may go and have for the taking. I have seen 
such mines on the Sierra Madres of Anahuac, the land of 
Mexico, and I have slept in them, breakfasted in them ; and 
upon those far-off slopes where the Maranon rolls by and 
the ghostly Inca castles start from out the mist. Think of it, 
good reader, from the depths of your arm-chair ! Think of 
it, ye sleek, top-hatted promoters, hatching wild-cat schemes 
in the recesses of your London or New York board-rooms ! 
There are mines such as would provide miles of city street 
with company offices and turn stock-exchanges and brokers' 
offices into untenantable pandemonium : whilst their mere 
prospectuses would flood the daily papers with their columns ! 
I am not romancing, good reader. All these exist and more, 
upon the vast regions tributary to this Great Pacific Coast, 
and they will be worked some day ; perhaps in that age 
when mining, instead of being more or less organized thiev- 
ing, has taken on the character of a necessary and equitable 
industry. There they lie — 

"Far away, in some region old, 
Where rivers wander o'er sands of gold, 
Where the burning rays of the ruby shine, 
And the diamond lights up the secret mine ! " 

There they lie in the rocks and valleys, and upon my own 
memory and in my musty report-books. 

It was the genius of Spain which opened these mines. 
Spain, indeed, has redeemed the New World more than any 
other nation from the stamp of being prosaic. The most 
palpable fact impressed upon us is the refusal of the people 
of Spanish-America to order their life and to sink their 
ideals according to the strenuous commercialism which 



18 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

dominates their northern neighbours, the Anglo-Americans 
of this same coast. The Spanish-American is heartily rated, 
as a rule, for his lack of stability and progress in business 
and modern industrial development, but with the universalist 
eye and evolutionist purpose with which we, good reader, 
may say (without presumption) we have set out to observe 
these peoples of the Great Pacific world, we shall refrain from 
judging them on this score. As philosophers we shall rather 
suspect that there is some underlying purpose in nature's 
work in this respect. "Cada loco con su tema," runs the 
Spanish proverb, counterpart of our own, "No accounting 
for tastes " (which, less flatteringly, is to be translated as 
"Every idiot with his opinion"); and we shall reserve ours 
on this point, in spite of the strenuous Chicago drummer of 
lard or machinery-selling firms, who, having taken a round- 
trip ticket (with "stop-off" privileges) from those enterpris- 
ing centres of North American civilization, goes hurtling 
down the Great Plateau of Mexico in Pullman car to the 
conquest of sample and invoice ! 

The women of Spanish-America are singularly attractive. 
Their warm-blooded southern temperament, inherited from 
Spain and mingled with the sturdy, prolific stock of the 
aboriginal races, has created a special type which, in addition, 
has been largely influenced by the tenets and practices of the 
Roman Catholic religion. The romantic damsels of these 
lands are both givers and recipients of admiration in a way 
unknown to the cold American woman of the north. I have 
observed them in Mexico, in Ecuador, Peru, Chile, and there 
are the same languorous and meaning glances; the same flash 
of the expressive eyes; the same throbbing personality 
yearning with desire. Let us but walk around the plaza — 
what languishing glances we shall see, from maiden of ten 
to the ripe matron ! If the cold and child-shirking woman 
of the north does not have a care her ardent sister of the 
south will bring larger races to fruition in the coming 
centuries ! A singular fact may strike the observer — the 
women of Spanish-x\merica seem superior to their men ; their 
ideals higher and minds broader. But the main circumstance 
of social life in the Spanish American countries of the Pacific 
coast, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, we shall find, is the ancient 



'UTTERMOST PARTS OF THE SEA' 19 

ecclesiastical regime transplanted from the old world. Now 
we, as philosophers, may despise and even censure these 
ecclesiastics (they are worthy of censure and praise; I know^ 
them well), but there is another point of view from which to 
regard them. They brought with them much of refinement 
and discipline, such as Anglo-America lacks. The hand of 
the Church weighed terribly, it is true, upon Colonial Spain, 
but it implanted refinement and traditions which are of great 
value to the people to-day. The priests and their methods 
have kept the people back in the path of progress and 
enlightenment; but the future may show that there are 
compensating circumstances from the "crowned and mitred 
tyranny " of Spain ; and even the impartial observer of the 
present knows that there is more spirit of true refinement in 
Spanish-American communities than in any Anglo-American 
countries, whether the United States, Canada or other 
British self-governing colonies. 

In matters of bloodshed and suffering the two races inhabit- 
ing the coast differ much. The Mexican or Chilean native 
regards a knife-thrust or mangled limb with a certain amount 
of equanimity, but any internal matter, such as a severe 
stomach-ache or tooth-ache sets him complaining like a child. 
In my travels in Spanish America I have noticed the peculi- 
arity, and one day one of my men was binding up a great 
cut received in a fight, without any fuss whatever, whilst 
another of them happened to be groaning with a belly-ache. 
I once gave a small phial of somebody's patent "painkiller" 
which I happened to have by me to an old fellow on the top 
of the Andes, in a remote Indian village, to stop his tooth- 
ache, which it did, to his irrepressible gratitude. He said 
he was going to send some gold nuggets to the makers at 
the address on the label ! The Anglo-Saxon, on the other 
hand, shrinks from bloodshed and more easily supports 
natural ills of the body. In their treatment of animals also 
the two races differ much, and it is safe to say that if there 
existed a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals in 
Mexico or South American countries the prisons would soon 
be full ! As regards the characteristics of the people and 
land of Spanish America generally, some Spanish writer 
(I think) has described them in three lines of an epigram 
c 2 



20 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

which takes the form of a rather terrible indictment, and 
which, hke all such, must be set down as not proven — 

" Flores sin olor, 
Hombres sin honor, 
Mujeres sin pudor ! " 

which must be translated as — 

"Flowers without perfume, 
Men without honour 
Women without modesty ! " 

I do not think any traveller in Spanish America would 
bear this out. The flowers of Mexico and Peru often have 
a delicious aroma; the women have splendid qualities, as I 
have set forth elsewhere in these pages, and are, as regards 
chastity, what their men make them ; whilst as to the latter, 
their trickery in business is probably not much more than 
that of the many unpunished rogues of London or New York 
financial circles, or of the dishonourable politicians of San 
Francisco, Chicago or "Tammany" generally. 

But let us set forth now on our long journey down this 
great coast and see what contrasts of civilization and of 
rugged nature it presents. We shall be much with nature 
here, yet bent upon some definite object even in the wilds. 
For to be at rest with himself in the wilds the traveller must 
be there with some earnest purpose. No mere meandering 
will satisfy him^ — or it will not satisfy nature. Nature is a 
stern mother, singing at times a lullaby; at others distinctly 
asking us what we are doing, as if she would turn our minds 
away from pusillanimous poetic ease to fields of action and 
accomplishment. The wind in the pine-trees, the long-drawn 
surf upon the shore — they exhort us with a touch of reproach 
as if our time of repose were not yet. So with an open and 
evolutionist mind shall we set out, to hear what things of 
good (or evil) report we may encounter. 

Twelve thousand miles in the Golden West is the road 
which lies before us, and this great coast will greet us under 
sunsets of crimson and gold. Glacier-bound, volcano-fringed 
and washed by lines of everlasting surf it lies, and we shall 
"take the wings of the morning and fly to the uttermost 
parts of the sea." 







o 
u 
< 

o 
ai 



II 

THE HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 

When and where did European man first set eyes upon 
the Pacific Ocean, and tread the strand of its coast? It is 
the year 15 13, and a Spanish conquistador, surrounded by 
sixty of his followers upon one memorable day, is standing 
on the summit of a range of mountains which they have 
ascended from the east. The sun is setting, and as the leader 
tops the summit he gazes earnestly and long towards the 
west ; and with an exclamation which attracts his companions' 
attention, points forward with outstretched arm. What do 
they see? Something never seen before by the white man. 
They see a world of waters stretching away under the sunset : 
an unknown ocean. The Spaniard was Vasco Nuiiez de 
Balboa; the hill upon which he stood was a peak in the 
isthmus of Darien or Panama, and the waters stretching 
away on his horizon were that great sea afterwards called the 
Pacific Ocean. And on the fourth day following the 
Spaniards made their way over the wild intervening land and 
arrived upon that unknown shore; and rushing waist-deep 
into the surf Balboa drew his sword and waved it over the 
face of the waters, taking possession of the ocean and the 
land on either hand for the king of Spain. 

It was an enormous claim to make. On the one hand — 
although, of course, Balboa knew it not — the land stretched 
to the north for eight thousand miles to where it touches the 
fringe of Asia; on the other it extended through the South 
Sea to that equally unknown Cape of Storms, the Horn, 
five thousand miles below. Truly it was a world-encircling 
littoral to which at that moment discovery gave the title- 
deeds to the genius of Spain ! 

Balboa had pierced the very heart and centre of the Great 
Pacific Coast; that slender topographical link of the isthmus 

21 



22 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

of Panama which joins the great continents of North and 
South America. But it was not enough to see and touch the 
ocean; and Balboa with a train of Indians brought timbers 
from the Atlantic side and built and launched vessels, and 
coasting along those sunset shores gathered in gold and 
pearls. This was in 1517. His way across the isthmus was 
marked in blood — as the way of the Spanish conquistadores 
generally was — the blood of the poor Indians, for hundreds 
of these human beasts of burden died under their task- 
masters' lash in their march with this shipbuilding material, 
across the rugged isthmus. Balboa, however, accomplished 
little beyond small coasting expeditions, although he and 
his followers gave the name of Peru to the southward- 
stretching land below Panama. Balboa, soon afterwards, 
was executed, as a result of the machination of jealous rivals, 
dying a violent death, like most of the conquistadores. 

Ever since the time of Columbus, twenty years before these 
events, the Spaniards had been obsessed by the idea of and 
belief in the existence of a "strait," which should give access 
from the Atlantic Ocean to the West, and so to the Orient ; 
and their bold mariners had been diligently searching there- 
for; and now that it was seen that only a few miles of land 
separated the great oceans, as demonstrated by Balboa, the 
search which had slackened from the discouragement of 
continual non-success was greatly stimulated. Not only was 
this urgent and persistent belief in the existence of a strait 
indulged in by the Spanish, but the other maritime nations 
of Europe cherished it equally; and to the persistent explora- 
tion which obeyed it was due the rapid geographical know- 
ledge which was gained of the Atlantic coast of North 
America. The great rivers of that continent were confidently 
expected to give access to the Pacific, but the mariner-explorers 
were repeatedly baffled. The Spaniards, it is more than 
probable, sought a strait more with the object of holding it 
against other nations, in order to render inviolate their undis- 
puted ownership of the Great Pacific Coast at that period. 

But following closely on the exploit of Balboa came 
another romantic and stormy chapter of discovery — the 
conquest of Mexico. On a memorable day — it was Good 
Friday, the 21st of April, in the year 15 19 — Hernando 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 23 

Cortes and his followers landed on the shores which they 
named Vera Cruz, washed by the Gulf of Mexico. How 
they won their way up the fastnesses of the Mexican 
Cordillera, beset betwixt allies and savage foes, and how 
the lake-city of Mexico fell at length before them forms, 
perhaps, the most thrilling chapter of that age. It would be 
beyond the province of this work to enter into much detail upon 
the conquest of Mexico ; and I have given it in another work, 
to which I may beg to direct the reader's attention. More- 
over, that remarkable conquest belongs more to the Atlantic 
than to the Pacific sphere. 

The next incident in the story of the Great Pacific Coast 
is in 1 52 1, when the Portuguese navigator Fernando de 
Magallanes with his pilot Sebastian del Cano, a Spaniard, 
discovered and traversed the straits which bear his name, 
at the southern extremity of South America ; and sailed thence 
to circumnavigate the globe. Magellan it was who gave the 
great ocean its name — the Pacific. 

Mexico and the Aztec Empire and Panama being in the 
power and occupation of Spain, the lands of central America 
soon fell before other of the conquistadores, who followed 
the exploits of Cortes and Balboa. In central America the 
ruthless gospel of the Spaniards, with blood, plunder and 
the Cross, resulted in the discovery of Lake Nicaragua and 
the Gulf of Fonseca, slightly to the north of Panama; and 
the river flowing from this lake to the Atlantic waters (the 
Caribbean Sea) gave birth to the idea — in 1523 — of a canal 
which, cutting through the level land to the west of the lake, 
might complete the longed-for interoceanic means of com- 
munication. In the history of this region the ruthless 
Pedrarias Davila has left the memory of his deeds, written, 
like others of the acts of the conquistadores, in the blood 
of the natives. 

Following upon these traffics and discoveries came the 
beginnings of another conquest, as startling and romantic as 
that of Mexico — the conquest of Peru. Another adventurous 
Spanish navigator, Andagoya, had voyaged down the Pacific 
Coast southwardly from the New Settlement of Panama, in 
1522, towards the region which Balboa had already called 
"Peru." Then uprose the famous Pizarro, and in company 



24 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

with a partner, Diego Almagro, both Spanish men who had 
sought fortune in this new world of Panama, and had settled 
on the isthmus, formed a company, and with the licence 
of the governor of Panama set sail on conquest bent, into 
the unknown world which stretched away towards the 
south. This was on November 14, 1524. The exploits of 
Pizarro are of the most famous in the history of the New 
World — his conquest of the Inca Empire and the capture 
of its emperor. But whilst no such perils of savage foes 
befell the expeditions of Pizarro such as compassed Cortes 
in Mexico, for the Incas were easily subjugated, other 
obstacles were encountered ; and it was not until November 
1532 that the real conquest of Peru was consummated. 

Returning now to Cortes, this intrepid conquistador had 
been appointed by Carlos V of Spain Governor and Captain- 
General of Mexico in 1522 and ever avid of adding fresh 
laurels to his name, and obsessed more than any one else 
by the hopes of the discovery of a "strait," which should 
give communication between the Atlantic and Pacific waters, 
sent an expedition to the west, beyond the plains and valley 
of Anahuac which formed the Aztec and Spanish centre. 
The wonderful news was brought back of a vast western sea, 
bounding the continent towards the setting sun. Rightly 
the conquistador judged this to be the same ocean of Balboa, 
and his imagination was instantly fired to explore it. On 
a previous expedition, during the siege of the Aztec city 
of Mexico in 15 19, Cortes had penetrated as far westward as 
Cuernavaca, near the great Balsas River, upon a punitive 
expedition ; but now he established a naval station on the 
coast, and sent vessels northward to explore the region above ; 
and in 1534 the southern extremity of the great peninsula 
now known as Baja or Lower California was discovered. 
The navigators imagined this peninsula to be an island, 
and an attempt was made to found a colony upon it, which 
failed, however. Most of these expeditions sent out by Cortes 
resulted in disappointment; but the strong impression made 
upon his imagination by the possibilities of the Great Pacific 
urged him to further effort and to greater expense — for con- 
quest had brought him both authority and riches. He 
personally conducted an expedition to Honduras to further 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 25 

that of his emissary and co-conquistador, Cristobal de Olid, 
who had been one of his generals in the conquest of Mexico; 
and upon this expedition it was that the unfortunate 
Guatemoc, who had accompanied him, was ruthlessly 
executed. At that period also the conquest of Guatemala was 
made by Pedro de Alvarado, the rash and impetuous but 
brave conquistador who also had assisted so prominently in 
the subjugation of the warlike Aztec Empire. 

Whilst these matters were pending the heroic Pizarro and 
his handful of Spanish adventurers were struggling along 
the appalling coast zone of Ecuador and Peru, starving often, 
defeated at times, abandoned by their comrades and suffering 
by reason of the perversity and opposition of the governor 
of Panama, who hindered the sending of reinforcements. 
How they crossed these burning deserts and ascended by 
the remarkable Inca roads up the mountain fastnesses of 
the Cordillera of the Andes in search of the Inca potentate — 
Atahualpa — who ruled those regions ; how their horses and 
guns astounded and overawed the Inca natives, as the horses 
and guns of Cortes had a short time before impressed the 
Aztec peoples of Mexico, and how they won great treasure 
and subdued an empire form the most unforgettable and 
romantic chapter in the whole history of the Great Pacific 
Coast. It has fallen to my lot to follow in the footsteps 
both of Cortes and of Pizarro, in Mexico and Peru, and 
thither we shall journey, kind reader. 

In 1539, after spending large sums of money in sending 
out more or less fruitless expeditions, Cortes dispatched Don 
Francisco de Ulloa to explore the Mexican coast northward, 
with three small ships. One of these was lost; the others 
sailed up the Gulf of California and reached its head, the 
delta of the great Colorado River. Thence Ulloa turned 
southward again, followed the shore of the great peninsula 
of Baja California, rounded its dangerous headland of San 
Lucas, and took his way, after battling against adverse winds 
and currents, up the hitherto unknown waters of the Pacific 
Coast as far north as Cerros Island, in latitude 28° N. The 
ships were badly equipped and his crew scurvy-stricken, and 
Ulloa never returned from that voyage. The only survivors 
were those of the accompanying vessel, which reached Mexico 



26 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

again to render account to Cortes. At this time the star 
of the world-famous conquistador of Mexico was declining, 
and the first viceroy, Mendoza, appointed by Carlos V of 
Spain, came into strong rivalry with Cortes. Now it w-as 
that the land expedition of Coronado was sent forth in search 
of the mythical El Dorado of Cibola, of whose existence 
stories had come down from the north ; and jMendoza further 
dispatched a fleet under Alar(;on to the head of the Gulf of 
California to support it. Alar9on ascended the Colorado 
River in boats up to its confluence with the Gila, which 
enters from Arizona, and thus demonstrated that Lower 
California was a peninsula and not an island, as had been 
supposed. It was at this period that the fantastic name of 
"California" was given to the region. The origin of this 
appellation is now considered to have been derived from the 
name of a fabulous island depicted in a Spanish romance 
or novel of the period. 

The governing of "New Spain," as Mexico had been 
oflicially termed, was carried on at first by an Audiencia, or 
species of administrative council nominated from Spain by 
royal decree, and the president of this body — Guzman — 
treated the natives with great abuse. In Michoacan, one of 
the Pacific states of Mexico, an unfortunate Indian chief 
was burned to death in 1527 because he W'Ould not give up 
his treasure, and so the oppression by Spaniards and colonists 
of the people began its reign, ameliorated in some cases by 
the acts of good viceroys, and Churchmen, who strove to 
carry out a juster Imperialism. In 1540 Cortes returned to 
Spain, practicallv ousted by the viceroy Mendoza, but the 
king scarcely listened to his grievances, and, hastened by 
indifference and ingratitude for his great services, he died 
in December 1547. Mendoza, the first viceroy, must be 
described as a good and capable ruler. Under him the first 
printing-press was established in the New World, and as to 
exploration he sent out Cabrillo, who penetrated still farther 
along the Pacific Coast to the north, letting go his anchor 
in a good harbour, which to-day is that of San Diego, the 
southernmost of California. As far as is known this was 
the first appearance of the white man on the shores of that 
part of the Great Pacific Coast which forms the United States 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 27 

and British Columbia. The ships of Cabrillo coasted north- 
ward vaHantly in spite of the terrible south-west gales which 
they encountered, reaching the Bay of Monterey; but little 
did they suspect the existence of the now famous Golden 
Gate — the entrance to San Francisco Bay, when, setting sail 
again towards the north, blown still by fierce storms, they 
passed, without seeing them, Point Pinos and Mount 
Tamalpais— sentinels watching near that famous entrance — 
passed them and reached latitude 42°. Borne back once more 
with the veering gale to the south-east — Cabrillo imploring 
the clemency of the Holy Virgin — they let go anchor at the 
Farallones and saw from afar the hills around the Golden 
Gate, and the pine-clad headland. But Nature still guarded 
her secret places, and the elusive cleft of the great harbour- 
entrance was below their horizon, and they missed seeing it. 
Still, they were the first Europeans to see its surroundings. 
Cabrillo died upon this voyage, but his pilot, Ferelo, another 
typical man of the times, eager for fame for himself and 
added glory for Spain, again pressed northwards under an 
appalling gale and again returned, and still the secret of the 
Golden Gate remained unlearned. 

However, at least the map of the Great Pacific Coast was 
unrolling, thanks to these gallant men of Spain. From near 
the present northern boundary of California, southwards 
through Mexico, Central America, and Panama, and down 
to Peru, and upwards from Cape Horn the course of this 
giant coast had now, in the middle of the sixteenth century, 
been given to the world. 

Yet it should rather be said that this great geographical 
advance was given to Spain, for Spain, having discovered, 
dominated the Pacific Coast ; and the great ocean which 
washed it was to all intents and purposes a Spanish sea. 
There was no approach to it save by the appalling Straits 
of Magellan, and the viceroys, governors and priests who 
dwelt along that mighty littoral felt as secure there as in 
their own mother country. For Spain at this period was 
the mightiest nation in Europe. The sixteenth century 
belonged to her ; Carlos V was the greatest potentate of 
Christendom ; and for over a hundred degrees of latitude his 
sceptre ruled that far-off region of the Great Pacific Coast. 



28 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Viceroy followed viceroy in Mexico; in Peru and Chile much 
had taken place; the Inca Empire was a thing of the past; 
Almagro and Pizarro had both died violent deaths — the latter 
in June 1541, after a beneficial rule for the country he had 
dominated. But these were but internal incidents; and the 
power of Spain was unquestioned in the Pacific-American 
world. 

But as they slumbered thus amid their peaceful bays and 
valleys and humble Indians, the Spaniards were suddenly 
aroused by a veritable bolt from the blue — Drake ! The 
great heart of Britain was awakening; the great buccaneers 
of Britain and Holland were to dispute the Spanish sway 
upon those peaceful shores. "What! " cried the viceroy of 
Lima, Don Francisco de Toledo, starting up in consterna- 
tion when he heard of this, the first "heretic" keel which 
had ever cloven the waters of the great Pacific Coast, "it 
/cannot be possible. Is not this the sacred dominion of His 
Most Catholic Majesty of Spain ! " Francis Drake, how- 
ever, held Spanish viceroys as his especial enemies. He had 
entered the Pacific through the Straits of Magellan, having 
left Plymouth with Elizabethan permission on December 
i3> i577> with a squadron of five ships. Near the town 
of Valdivia in Chile he captured a treasure-ship, and then 
sailing northward to Peru fell like a hawk upon Callao ; 
bagged another plate-ship, and, cutting the cables of the other 
Spanish vessels in the harbour to prevent pursuit, set sail 
in his flag-ship, the Golden Hind, alone, for the squadron 
had been scattered by the storms of Magellan, to the north- 
ward still, hot in the wake of a great galleon full of gold 
and silver which had just left for Panama. Away they went 
up the great Pacific Coast, and when the wifid dropped they 
put the boats out and towed the ship for three days. The 
reward of this strenuous chase was the great plate-ship, 
which they bagged off Cape Francisco with — it is recorded — 
nearly a million pounds on board : gold and silver torn from 
the virgin rocks of the Andes by sacrifice of Indian lives ! 
The daring admiral then continued his northward voyage; 
as one of his objects was to discover the still hoped-for 
passage to the Atlantic. Moreover, he knew that Spanish 
war-vessels would be thoroughly guarding the Magellan 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 29 

homeward way, which, as a matter of fact, the outraged Lima 
viceroy, Toledo, was doing with eleven ships. Northward, 
then, his prow was turned still, until he re^iched the latitude 
of 42" N. — the same latitude which Cabrillo had earlier 
reached, encountering a cold climate. On June 17, 1579, 
he entered a good harbour in latitude 38" 30' (which is 
believed to be the bay called Drake's Bay on modern 
maps, a few miles to the north of the Golden Gate of San 
Francisco), and here the intrepid man of Devon and his 
sea-dogs took possession of the land for Queen Elizabeth 
under the name of "New Albion," referring both to their 
island home of Britain and to the white cliffs of this new 
land. 

Upon the shore of this bay, just under the protecting hook 
of Point Reyes, Drake repaired the Golden Hind, building 
a wall of stone to protect his crew from the possible attacks 
of Indians. They landed, moreover, on the south-east 
Farallon — the rocky islets off the Golden Gate, and secured 
sea-wolves or seals, the same animals which the traveller of 
to-day hears barking on that coast. The meat was an accept- 
able food, the diary of the voyage states, and they laid in 
a store of it. It is maintained by some authorities that 
Drake, although he found the "good harbour" under the 
white cliffs, which he named "New Albion," did not see 
the entrance to the elusive Golden Gate, nor enter San 
Francisco Bay, as it was overlapped to his view by the 
peninsula, or w^as below his horizon. Probably, however, 
this must remain a point of geographical doubt, as other 
authorities hold that Drake discovered the Golden Gate. 

Turning thence, Drake bid farewell for the time being to 
the Great Pacific Coast, which he had so ravished, and direct- 
ing the prow of the famous Golden Hind towards the setting 
sun, he bore bravely out into the limitless waters of the 
Pacific Ocean to circumnavigate the world for home — the 
second who had performed that wondrous deed, leaving the 
Spanish warships to cruise uselessly about at the bottom 
of South America. 

The close of the sixteenth century marked the beginning 
of the decline of Spain. In 1588 the Invincible Armada 
perished, and Spain's sea-power dwindled. Exploration of 



30 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the northern region of the Great Pacific Coast fell off, and 
except for the voyages of the Spanish emissary Vizcaino, 
for the fortifying of San Diego and Monterey harbours 
against buccaneers from Europe, and the visits of the Manila 
ships trading to the Philippines, no vessels scoured those 
seas at all, and upper California was uncontrolled save by 
its own savage indigenes. The stream of filibusters, bucca- 
neers, corsairs and explorers which harried and visited the 
Spanish-American coasts of Chile, Peru, Panama and 
Mexico, later, in the following century, of British, Dutch, 
French and other nationalities, whether intent upon taking 
toll of defenceless coast towns and their treasuries, whether 
upon more peaceful errands, did not go much to the north- 
wards of Mexico. Spain and the Great Pacific Coast which she 
ruled slept for more than a century and a half, and England, 
France and Holland undertook the colonizing of the New 
World of North America, on the Atlantic. The Pilgrim Fathers 
sailed. New England was established; Quebec was peopled; 
the AUeghanies, the Mississippi and other great natural 
features were found and crossed; British navigators eagerly 
sought the north-west passage from Hudson Bay to the 
Pacific, and Spain held Florida. But above all was the rise 
of Britain; her sea-power dominated everywhere, and she 
gained possession of the entire half of the North American 
continent upon the Atlantic. 

But in the meantime an important event had occurred on 
the great Pacific Coast. In 1740 the Russian navigator 
Behring sighted the coasts of Alaska, the northernmost part 
of the continent, in the icy Arctic regions; and his name 
remains to-day in Behring Straits. This remarkable channel 
is only thirty-five miles in width, separating Asia from 
America in the Pacific, and connected by the continental 
shelf. Indeed, it might have been supposed that America 
would have been discovered and peopled first from that side, 
where land, islands and ice are almost continuous, instead 
of by Europeans, who first must cross the Atlantic. Probably 
it was so discovered and peopled by the peoples who, 
emigrating from Asia, formed the ancestors of the Aztecs, 
Toltecs and Incas of Mexico and Peru in pre-Hispanic days. 
Vitus Behring had doubled the farthest eastern point of Asia 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 81 

in the service of the Russian Government in 1728; and then 
it was that he crossed to the frigid coasts of Alaska, in 1740. 

Up to this period nothing had been known of the inland 
sea of San Francisco and its singular entrance; that cleft 
in the coast range now termed the Golden Gate — always 
supposing that Drake had not entered it. But in 1772 an 
expedition set out from Monterey with a comandante and a 
-padre, journeyed along the Californian foothills and skirted 
the shore of the bay where the city of Oakland now stands, 
and saw the estuary of the San Joaquin and Sacramento 
rivers, and beheld the snowy range, which they named the 
Sierra Nevada. A few days after this they perceived the 
opening of the Golden Gate and its sea-horizon beyond, 
backed by the Farallones — thus first discovering and record- 
ing it. Two years later another expedition, also with a 
comandante and a priest, ascended the rocky headlands 
which overhang the gate and planted a cross upon their 
virgin crags, blessed the place, and had view of the pinnacled 
islets of the Farallons, which, far to seaward, the traveller 
of to-day may behold from San Francisco's environs. 

But the real conquest of the Golden Gate was yet to come : 
the passage of its virgin waters by a European prow. A little 
later sea-expeditions were dispatched by the indefatigable 
viceroys of New Spain to found missions and Presidios upon 
that rocky coast and inland bays ; especially the energetic 
Bucareli of Viceregal Mexico, seconded by the willing efforts 
of the comandantes and the priests. The splendid pine- 
covered headland — Point Pinos — and the pinnacled Faral- 
lones were the landmarks to the elusive and mysterious fog- 
bound Gate of California, which only the rays of the setting 
sun and the navigating sea-lions had penetrated yet : the 
gate which was to be the outlet to an empire, to which all 
the wealth of California should gravitate by natural laws. 
But now the hour and the vessel had arrived to penetrate 
this unravished entrance, which nature had so jealously 
guarded from Drake, "the master-thief of the unknown 
world," to yield herself up to the insinuations of the (doubt- 
less !) austere and ascetic padres of the Church. The day 
was the 27th of July, 1775, when the San Carlos sailed from 
Monterey; and at the termination of the Novena, the nine- 



32 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

days' oration celebrated by the officiating padre, the port 
was sighted. The vessel's launch, which had been fashioned 
by the carpenters earlier from a single redwood log, was 
dispatched to reconnoitre the cliff-bound channel of the 
Golden Gate. As it did not return, the vessel herself, deem- 
ing it prudent and aided by the strong flood current setting 
inwards at the time, and lighted by the last rays of the 
setting sun, which were borne over the great Pacific bosom, 
and the silver gleam of the rising moon, the San Carlos 
herself passed through the Golden Gate and dropped anchor 
in the bay.^ Thus this great and famous harbour of the 
North Pacific Ocean was first given to the knowledge and 
use of man. 

And now Great Britain enters on the scene once more 
upon this mighty littoral. Henry Hudson had perished in 
the great northern inland sea which perpetuates his name, 
a century before, and other brave lives had gone in the search 
for the hoped-for North-west Passage. Yet it was known 
that a great open sea existed far to the north-west of Hud- 
son's Bay, approachable via Behring Strait; for Samuel 
Hearn, an emissary of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company, 
had explored the northern wilderness for a thousand miles 
to where the Coppermine River debouched into some sea 
of the north. The work of the great Drake was to be con- 
tinued, and the famous Captain Cook sails in upon the scene 
—Cook, the discoverer of New Zealand, the explorer of the 
Australian shore. "Explore the coast and waters of New 
Albion," were the instructions issued to Captain Cook by the 
British Admiralty, "northwards to 65°, and seek to find a 
passage from Behring's Strait into the Atlantic." Cook 
sailed in July 1776; spent a year and a half in the South 
Pacific, sailed north and west, and discovered the Sandwich 
Islands, January 1778, and two months later reached the 
American coast upon the 44th parallel. Going still north- 
ward he looked for the supposed inlet-passage by which it 
had been said an Italian navigator, Juan de Fuca, had 
reached the Atlantic, found it not, but in latitude 49° 
entered a harbour now called Nootka Sound, on the coast of 

1 For details of these matters, see T/ie Discovery of San Fmndsco Bay, 
Professor Davidson : San Francisco, California. 




Indians of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, at the present time. 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 83 

Vancouver Island. To Mount Edgecumbe and Mount Saint 
Elias he applied those respective names — the latter the great 
snowy peak more than eighteen thousand feet altitude upon 
the borders of the i\Iaska and Yukon of to-day, whose gleam- 
ing crest forms so notable a landmark from the sea. On- 
wards still went Cook, towards the frozen north, searching 
ever for a passage; and at last, sailing through Behring 
Strait, he reached "the north-westernmost extremity of 
all America" and named it "Cape Prince of Wales," — 
August 9, 1778. Immediately opposite this headland he 
found another cape. It was the north-easternmost point of 
Asia; that striking and interesting geographical condition 
in which the ancient continent — cradle of the human race — 
approaches the shores of the New World : latitude 66° N. 

So the genius of Britain completed what the genius of 
Spain had begun, for the work of Cook was corollary, 265 
years afterwards, to the work of Magellan and Balboa. 

Nevertheless, Spain claimed the whole of this vast coast, 
by right of Balboa's first entrance and the subsequent Papal 
"authority." But the sojourn of Cook at Nootka had given 
rise to an unexpected development — a development brought 
about to some extent, moreover, by an insignificant animal : 
the sea-otter. Canoe-loads of Indians had crowded about 
Cook's ships with the sea-otters' skins for barter; and when 
the expedition on its homeward voyage reached Canton in 
China, these skins were found to be of great value — a skin 
which had cost sixpence, perhaps, selling for a hundred 
dollars. The possibility of fur-trading following upon this 
created great interest in England and elsewhere, and ships 
and traders of all the maritime peoples of Europe and of the 
United States began to frequent the north-west coast. Spain 
viewed these proceedings with alarm. Were not these still 
her own sacred waters ? Action was necessary : an expedi- 
tion to Nootka followed, difficulties and preparations for war 
between Britain and Spain ensued; but by the Nootka Con- 
vention of November 1790 British rights were admitted, and 
Spain lost the sovereignty of the region. 

But for the following quarter of a century the hands of 
Britain were full with European affairs, and the hardy and 
enterprising traders and whalers of New England — among 



34 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

them Ledyard — journeying via the stormy Horn, made of 
this far-off region of the Great Pacific Coast a United States 
field of almost exclusive character. To an American trader 
— Captain Gray — moreover, was the credit of discovering the 
great Columbia River; that mighty stream which falls into 
the Pacific Ocean in latitude 46° 10', after traversing British 
Columbia and Washington. 

The discovery of the mouth of the Columbia was attended, 
although to a less extent, by the same elusive circumstances 
as that of the Golden Gate. The bay at its mouth was 
discovered by the Spaniards in 1775 by Heceta, who imagined 
a river must debouch there; whilst a few years afterwards 
the English trader, Lieutenant Meares, sailed along outside 
the bar and called the place Deception Bay ; but he denied 
the existence of a river such as Spanish charts had 
said to exist. In 1778 Captain Cook passed the bay, but 
even he failed to see the river's mouth ; whilst yet another 
famous British captain — George Vancouver — whose name 
remains so prominently upon that coast to-day, only noted 
the appearance of a small inlet, as he described it; and he 
continued his voyage to Pugel Sound. Two weeks later, on 
May II, 1792, he heard of Gray's discovery; and the 
American named the river after the good ship Columbia in 
which he entered it. This was the first ship which, two 
years previously, had ever carried the Stars and Stripes 
around the world, on Gray's voyage from Boston to China. 

Thus we have seen how, step by step, the line and features 
of the Great Pacific Coast unrolled to the hardy voyagers of 
the various nations whose natural impulses took them thither. 
From the extremity of North America and Asia, in the frozen 
Arctic, to the extremity of South America at Cape Horn, 
twelve thousand miles of surf-beat shore, the contour of this 
great coast lay at the map-maker's will. Still, however, the 
dream remained of the North-west Passage : some open 
route of "silent highway" which should give access from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, whose entrance, hidden perchance by 
some peaked promontory, should yet yield up its secret. The 
"secret of the strait" had now transferred itself to the secret 
of the passage. 

But we must follow for the moment the great pioneers of 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 35 

the Anglo-Saxon West; beginning their struggles with 
nature, with Indians, floods and mountains in the early years 
of the nineteenth century. The French, Spanish, American 
and British spheres of influence on both sides of the vast 
Mississippi became changed and defined, and civilization 
gradually took its westw-ard way. The land highway to the 
Pacific from the Missouri, across the approaching head- 
waters of the Missouri (which, as the Mississippi, falls into 
the Mexican Gulf) and the Columbia (falling into the Pacific), 
was accomplished by the famous Lewis and Clark expedition 
sent out in 1803 by the wise and kindly Jefferson, president 
of the growing young giant of the United States. The 
famous fur-trading companies and their rival territories, 
the Oregon question and the boundary definitions, the great 
westward migration, the gold discovery of California are 
all great matters which have affected and decided the march 
of civilization on the Great Pacific Coast, mainly in the 
nineteenth century. 

The instructions issued by the United States President 
Jefferson embodied an absolute path-finding mission to the 
Pacific Coast "to explore the Missouri River and such 
principal streams of it as, by its course and communication 
with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, 
Oregon, Colorado, or some other river, may offer the most 
direct and practical water communication across the conti- 
nent for the purposes of commerce." So wrote Jefferson in 
his mandate to Lewis and Clark. He added instructions to 
the effect that they were to err on the side of safety for them- 
selves, rather than in temerity of exploration, showing his 
kindly thought for the explorers. Just prior to leaving 
St. Louis the leader of the expedition happened to witness 
the lowering of the French flag in upper Louisiana and 
the hoisting in its place of the Stars and Stripes; and then 
they began their toilsome up-stream voyage against the swift 
Missouri River, passing the last white man's settlement— 
the home of the famous Daniel Boone. On the way they 
encountered British and French traders; and buffaloes, 
Indians and grizzly bears were companions of their journey- 
ings. Onw^ards they pressed towards the source of the giant 
Missouri, through a wild, unexplored region ; going far to the 
D 2 



36 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

northward along its fluvial highway. Overturned boats, 
dangerous rapids, fatigue and privation were but diurnal 
incidents of their long and interesting journey ; and at length, 
in August 1805, Captain Clark, with a portion of his com- 
pany, ascended the summit of the Rocky Mountains to the 
very divortia aquarum of the continent, where the foot of 
the white man had never trod before. Inspired by the belief 
that he was looking over upon the watershed of the Pacific 
Ocean — although 800 or 1,000 miles away from its shores 
— the leader crossed the summit on the same day, and 
descending the slopes for a space encountered a fine stream. 
This stream was flowing to the ivcst! It was the headwaters 
of one of the affluents of the great Columbia River, that 
magnificent fluvial artery of the Pacific north-west, which 
rising in the Rocky Mountains debouches in the Pacific 
Ocean after traversing British Columbia, Washington and 
Oregon. After great difficulties and privations the expedi- 
tion reached the navigable headwaters of this affluent — the 
Snake River — over rocks, fallen trees, through dense forests, 
torrential, icy streams, storms of snow and sleet, alternating 
with heat and fever — such elements as Nature ever prepares 
for the pioneer-intruders in her untrodden labyrinths. 
Building five canoes they descended the river, passed the 
now famous Dalles, and the narrows and cascades of the 
great salmon-bearing river, and on the 7th of November 
reached their desired haven. There upon their ears fell the 
roar of the mighty western sea; there before their eyes were 
the blue waves and surf-beat verge of the Great Pacific Coast. 
Thus was a highway first opened to the west by these 
intrepid young Americans. 

The dawning of the great nineteenth century was pregnant 
with other matters of grave portent for the Great Pacific 
Coast. The dominion of Spain over her colonies was shak- 
ing to its core, and the birth of new nations was heralded. 
The long pageant of viceroy, priest and governor was draw- 
ing to its close, unrolled for three hundred years upon the 
shores of Mexico and Peru. The civilization of Spain had 
penetrated those thousands of miles of savage forest and 
snow-crowned Cordilleras : beautiful cities and capitals — 
chapters in stone from the mother country — had arisen; a 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 37 

great social and ecclesiastical system had grown to being ; 
myriads of mines of gold and silver had vomited their wealth 
down from the Andes to the plate-ships, and myriad Indians 
had given up their wretched lives to enrich the callous 
monarchy and moribund nation of their taskmasters. The 
seal of Spain, full of beauty, full of cruelty, pregnant with 
possibilities, sown with disorders, had been indelibly stamped 
upon the peoples of that mighty littoral for full eight thou- 
sand miles — a civilization which may hold much yet 
unsuspected for the New World. And now the voice of 
Bolivar was heard, and other heroes too ; and the thoughts 
of French philosophers, the influence of French revolution 
and the machinations of French Napoleon threw their 
shadows and effects into the New World. Caracas, Chile, 
Buenos Ayres, Peru, Mexico, all threw off the mastery of 
Spain, and were launched on their own keels to perturb the 
world with fifty years and more of bloody revolution — working 
out, nevertheless, their own destinies in nature's ordained and 
mysterious way. 

Whilst these weighty matters were pending in the Spanish- 
American world, both north and south of Panama, the more 
backward, but more vigorous civilization of the Anglo-Saxon 
was beginning to take root upon the North Pacific Coast. 
In 1818 the finding of a North-west Passage became again a 
British national object, and Lieutenant Franklin — of immortal 
name — voyaged in Hudson Bay in command of an expedition 
to traverse Prince Rupert's Land to the Arctic Sea. The 
Arctic Coast of America at that time was only known at 
the mouth of the Coppermine River, discovered by Hearne, 
and the mouth of the Mackenzie River; and Franklin sur- 
veyed a portion of the coast. A second expedition in 1825 
was also successful, and on his return home Franklin was 
knighted, and other honours were awarded him. In 1845 
the Admiralty offered him the command of an expedition 
to discover the North-west Passage. He accepted, and with 
a picked crew, partly from the numerous volunteers who had 
come forward, he set sail in the Erehits and the Terror, May 
1845, with three years' provisions. Alas, poor Franklin ! for 
from that day, save that the ships were sighted in July by a 
whaler in Baffin's Bay, the vessels were never seen again. 



/ 



38 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Whilst at first anxiety was not felt for the gallant explorer 
and his companions, for enthusiastic letters found their way 
home, an expedition was, nevertheless, dispatched in 1847 to 
relieve Franklin. It was unsuccessful. Then the alarm 
became general; expedition after expedition — fifteen of them 
between 1848 and 1854 — "^^'^s dispatched, whether from 
England or America, upon the track of the vanished ships. 
Yet still the frozen North retained its secret, no definite 
tidings were obtained, and the efforts of the British Admiralty 
came to an end. But what official effort did not accomplish 
the love of a wife was able to consummate. Who can read 
the story of Lady Franklin — even in the twentieth century — 
without a tear in his eye and a swelling of his heart? 
Exhausting all her available funds this devoted and pious 
woman — her husband's disappearance had aroused the pitv 
and interest of the whole civilized world — sent out further 
expeditions to the frozen North in search of Franklin ; and 
traces of the explorer's journey were found — skeletons and 
articles of property, — and the stories of the Eskimos pointed 
to some terrible disaster. These tidings were brought back 
to the heartbroken lady : there could be no hope. Yet one 
final effort then she made to wrest from those Arctic snows 
the secret at least of the final resting-place of her husband. 
Giving all her available means thereto, the Fox, a household 
name in Arctic history now, was purchased and its command 
accepted by Captain, afterwards Sir Leopold, M'Clintock, 
and the vessel sailed for the North-west Passage. From this 
expedition the truth was learned : the trail of ships' articles, 
broken boats, and skeletons all along the coast of King 
William Island told a tragic tale which the stories of the 
Eskimos bore out, and all was corroborated by the discovery 
of a ship's chart in a cairn, upon which some inscription 
set forth that the ships had been abandoned, that disaster 
had befallen the expedition — hunger, suffering, cold, loss, 
and that Sir John Franklin had perished on June 11, 1847. 
Furthermore, it stated that the survivors planned to make 
their way back, but the rescuers, following on the indicated 
route, found only empty boats and whitened skeletons to tell 
the tale; and the resting-place of Franklin and the where- 
abouts of the Erebus and the Terror were unsolved mysteries. 




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HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 39 

As to the North-west Passage the honour of the beginning 
of its discovery is given to FrankHn, for his voyage was in 
the right direction, and only an error at the last led to its 
failure and his destruction. The first to pass through the 
Passage, although partly sailing only and partly on foot 
along its icy shores, was iMcLure, with the Investigator ; but 
it was the work of M'Clintock with the Fox which paved the 
way. Other intrepid souls there were, famous in the history 
of the Arctic — Parry, Ross, Rae, Young, and more adven- 
turers still, all seeking to navigate that northern strait which, 
conceived by the Elizabethan voyagers as a great trade route 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, became from natural circum- 
stance of scientific interest only as time went on. Now the 
navigation of this elusive highway has been accomplished, 
but only now— yesterday — as in its place we shall see.^ 

Upon the map and history of the great north-west region 
no names are so prominent as those of the series of intrepid 
and enterprising Scotchmen, who pushed their way and 
brought civilization on to the Arctic and Pacific coasts, from 
the middle of the eighteenth to the middle of the nineteenth 
century. The rivalry for the Columbia River fur-trade and 
all the huge region of which it was the centre was keen. 
Two powerful British companies were operating : the Hud- 
son's Bay and the North-west Fur companies, and one of 
their officers, Alexander Mackenzie, had opened a way for 
trade by his discovery and exploration of the Mackenzie 
River in 1789 to the Arctic Ocean, and to the Pacific by 
crossing the Rocky Mountains from the head of the Peace 
River in 1793. Surmounting appalling difficulties Mackenzie 
arrived at what he thought was the Columbia River, but 
which was in reality the Fraser River — so-named afterwards ; 
the great stream which, traversing British Columbia south- 
wardly, empties into the Pacific at Vancouver. 

But the establishing of Astoria by the American trader 
Astor at the mouth of the Columbia — a most enterprising 
expedition this was — gave the Americans a strong foothold 
in those regions, which was, however, disputed by the 
British, and iVstoria was sold to the North-west Company in 
1813; the British flag taking the place of the American. 

1 See p. 44. 



40 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

A fusion of the two great British companies soon afterwards 
caused rivalry between them to cease; and Fort Vancouver 
was estabHshed in 1825 under the "Father of Oregon," as 
the pioneers termed Dr. McLoughlin, the kindly and famous 
British manager. From this point the fur-trade of the region 
was dominated entirely, until the "Oregon question" arose, 
a long, desultory, although at times bitter question, which 
took twenty-nine years to settle. The Americans claimed 
the Columbia Valley by right of its discovery by Gray; but 
a joint occupation of the territory was entered into by the 
two countries, under which traders of both nations had 
equal rights. 

Yet the Americans gave little heed to this vast territory, 
for their part, and the American Congress at Washington 
continually defeated movements to establish official govern- 
ments and colonies there. One American orator declared 
that "Nature has fixed the limits for our nation; a western 
boundary of inaccessible mountains (the Rockies) whose base 
she has skirted with irreclaimable deserts of sand " ; and only 
a few idealists looked upon the huge region of the Pacific 
slope as of any value to the United States at that time. It 
was in 1817, indeed, that Bryant wrote of those — 

"Continuous woods where rolls the Oregon, 
And hears no sound save his own dashings." 

The Oregon was the poetical name for the Columbia River, 
taken from a book by Carver, a famous pioneer, and it 
became popular. At length further diplomatic negotiations 
arose between Britain and the United States, the former 
demanding the Columbia River as a boundary and insisting 
on her right to the country west and north thereof; denying 
the American right to the whole river by reason of Gray's 
discovery of its mouth, and the Lewis-Clark expedition, and 
putting forward with acknowledged justice the explorations 
of Cook and Vancouver, and the fact that her subjects had 
spent vast sums of money in the development of trade in the 
region. Even years afterwards, in the Ashburton treaty of 
1842, when other questions between Britain and the ITnited 
States were settled, the Oregon boundary remained undefined, 
and the Americans of Oregon were bitterly disappointed at 
their Government's inaction. The evils of slavery w-ere 



HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 41 

beginning to be felt in the United States. At this period the 
"Great Migration " began : adventurous spirits were urged on 
by the tales of pioneers, and the majestic mountains, bound- 
less plains, rushing rivers and mighty caiions formed their 
promised land, and a new world opened to the Americans 
of the eastern states, in the regions of the great unopened 
west. 

The first American Government to be established on the 
Pacific was in the huge territory of Oregon in 1844, where 
a Provisional Government by compact among the pioneers 
was drawn up, following on the settlement of the country 
after the "Great Migration " in the previous years. Nothing 
is so sensational, perhaps, in the movement of a people as 
this setting out towards the west at that period in the history 
of the American people dwelling east of the Rocky Moun- 
tains. The entire populations of towns, seized with "Oregon 
fever," organized themselves into great caravans and trekked 
towards the Pacific slope and the great Santa F^ and Oregon 
trails. And the stories of privation, Indian attacks, heroism, 
villany, murder, enterprise and every other quality and inci- 
dent of emigrating man and adventurous travel form the 
theme of a romantic history which is a notable phase in the 
life of America. Oregon then was the great Mecca; Cali- 
fornia was almost unknown and unconsidered, except for 
a few Spanish missions and the gentle civilization they estab- 
lished under the rule of Spanish-Mexico, which had come, 
not from the east, but up the Great Pacific Coast. 

The Oregon question now grew acute. A convention was 
held at Cincinnati, in which the entire country was interested, 
for the Great Migration had attracted much attention and 
the desire for establishing American rights west of the Rocky 
Mountains. The result was that the Americans, who had 
formerly claimed up to the 49th parallel, advanced their 
claims to include the territory up to latitude 54° 40'. This 
exorbitant and unfair demand gave rise to the singular 
bombastic "war-cry" which accompanied the election of 
President Polk in 1844, of "Fifty-four forty or fight," in 
which it was urged to make war with Great Britain if that 
boundary were not acceded to. Britain, however, took no 
heed of the demand, although it must be stated in justice 



42 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

to the Americans that it was unfortunate that she had so 
long refused to adjudicate on the basis of the 49th parallel, 
which the United States had offered. The next president, 
however — Calhoun — desirous of avoiding war, which might 
seriously have threatened, opened negotiations again, and on 
the 15th of June, 1846, the question was settled with the 
4gth parallel as the boundary, and the treaty signed, and 
British Columbia to-day extends southwards to that parallel. 

The difficulties of the people of Oregon, however, were not 
over. Their Provisional Government had embodied as part 
of their tenets that no slavery should be permitted in the 
territory — it was repugnant to the people of the Pacific slope ; 
but Congress, with its slavery-favouring president Calhoun, 
withheld official territorial rights and government from 
Oregon on this account. Moreover, the massacre of their 
chief public man by the Indians, and the Indian war follow- 
ing, involved the Oregonians in deep difficulties and expense; 
yet still the United States — who had been willing to go to 
war with Great Britain over a question of boundary — failed 
in their national duty to their far-off kinsmen, left them 
defenceless and without resource ; their only means of 
resource being the British Hudson Bay Company, who 
supplied them with loans of goods. It was the last straw. 
A memorial was indited by the Oregonians: "We despair 
of your protection. Indian tomahawks are red with our 
blood. We have a right to your aid, and you are in justice 
bound to extend it. We are struggling with all the ills of 
a weak and temporary Government ; and with the coming 
of next summer sun we expect your laws and your arms." 
Such was the burden of the message which valiant pioneers 
carried eastwards from the Pacific Coast to Congress at 
Washington ; and only then did Oregon secure at last a 
proper territorial government, in March 1849. 

This date, 1849, is almost a world-famous one — 4he "days 
of gold" were ushered in, and the westward star of Oregon 
paled before the meteoric luminary of California : a land 
which hitherto had been almost unconsidered, as we have 
seen. South of latitude 42° N., the present northerly bound- 
ary of California, all was the Spanish land of New Spain. 
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HISTORY OF THE GREAT COAST 43 

of California was hers. Some emigration from Oregon had 
taken place, however, and after the question between Texas 
and Mexico in 1836, the menace of war between the Anglo- 
American Republic of the United States and the Spanish- 
American Republic of Mexico ever existed, which some day 
was destined to be wiped out in blood. Errors on both sides 
and the question of slavery, which Mexico forbade and the 
Texans and the Americans upheld, influenced the rupture 
at length, and, as a result, California was lost to Mexico, as 
well as the other enormous territories — Texas, New Mexico 
and other areas — in 1848, just before the discovery of gold 
in California. The loss of this territory w-as bitterly resented 
by the Mexicans; and it is to be recollected that under 
Iturbide (1821) the Empire of Mexico was the third largest 
in the world, coming after the Russian and Chinese Empire 
in point of size. 

We have seen that Spanish and British influences have 
been those which have dictated the possession and civilization 
of these vast territories of the Great Pacific Coast. Yet 
there was another people engaged in planting the seeds of 
their own system — religious and social — in the north-west 
Pacific region. Russia held Alaska, the huge Asia-fronting 
province verging on the Arctic Circle, by right of Behring's 
discoveries, and the Greek Church and Russian nomenclature 
still form salient features of Alaskan towns. But Russia 
had little ambition to be an American power; and in 1867 
she sold Alaska to the United States for one and a half 
millions sterling, and by so relinquishing her sphere upon 
that continent earned the regard of the United States. The 
Behring Sea question which arose between the United States 
and Great Britain and Canada was a source of irritation and 
danger for many years, but it was settled by arbitration, in 
Paris, 1893; the exclusive rights in Behring Sea which had 
been put forward by the United States being disallowed, as 
also the monopoly of the fur seal fishing. After this there 
remained the matter of the boundary between Canada and 
Alaska to be settled, and this was definitely concluded in 
1903, by a joint commission. 

Thus the tale of the geographical discovery, distribution 
and possession of the vast littoral of the Great Pacific Coast 



44 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

has drawn to its close. Yet stay ! there is one item still. 
Balboa first saw the Pacific in 1513; Magellan rounded the 
southern end of South America in 152 1 ; Behring and Cook 
explored its northernmost points in 1740 and 1778; Franklin 
and others navigated the Arctic in the nineteenth century. 
But by whom, and when, was this monstrous island of the 
two Americas to be circumnavigated at the north ? We 
heard the answer in 1908, at the Royal Geographical Society, 
when a brave Norwegian sailor — Roald Amundsen — and a 
few companions came back from their journey in a small 
fishing-boat, having completed "the most interesting voyage 
there remainc^d to be achieved on this earth." ^ Starting in 
1903 from the Atlantic side, they had navigated the North- 
west Passage in the little Gjoa, sailing westward and emerg- 
ing into the ocean which washes the Great Pacific Coast. 
Thus, only yesterday, was the circumnavigation of America 
completed. In September 1909 the w-orld was startled by 
the reported discovery of the North Pole by the American 
explorer, Dr. Cook, who claimed to have arrived thereon 
earlier in the previous year, and a few days afterwards by that 
of another American explorer. Commander Peary. 

Thus we have informed ourselves, good reader, as wise 
travellers ever do, of the outline of the history of the region 
we are going to visit — these sunset-lands where roll twelve 
thousand miles of ocean surge against the Pacific shores. 

^ Royal Geographical Journal. 



Ill 

CENTRAL AMERICA : THE LAND OF THE ISTHMLIS 

If there is one piece of land in the New World, or indeed 
upon the Globe, which, from its singular structure, forms a 
centre of topographical interest, that piece of land is the 
Isthmus of Panama. The Great Pacific Coast is being called 
upon to yield up its impenetrable continuity. The "secret 
of the strait," so long dreamed of by voyaging explorers, is 
finally to be solved; the passage from sea to sea, which nature 
made seons ago and closed up again in the Tertiary ages 
before man appeared, is to be opened once more. For man 
has left his Quaternary caves and savage yesterday, and now, 
having a mind to pass great war-canoes and mighty rafts of 
merchandise from one side of America to another, has 
marshalled an army of human workers- — and is cutting 
through the low backbone of the Andes here to make the 
Panama Canal. 

Cogitating thus, I turned aside to view a heap of rusting 
engines amid riotous vegetation and iron wrack— a corner of 
the remains of the De Lesseps' regime which had remained 
untouched by the American engineers ; and I observed part 
of an ancient railway track, whose rusty rails ended in a 
mosquito-haunted swamp. Whilst I looked at it it seemed 
to move, or be alive, and I saw a thick stream of tropical 
ants walking along the rails, to disappear among the vegeta- 
tion. An hour afterwards I beheld the stream of human 
ants in the famous Culebra Cut, and the mighty earth-moving 
engines they manoeuvred — splendid human ants of Anglo- 
Saxon race, undaunted before the rocky ribs and dismal 
swamps upon their line of route. 

As I stood upon the shore of the surf-fringed bay of Colon 
and watched where, beyond its horse-shoe curve and palm- 
clad promontory, the steamer I had left lay anchored, it came 

45 



46 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

upon me with sudden force that this was indeed the limit of 
the Atlantic world. And when I had passed over the fifty 
miles of railway through those tangled woods and fevered 
swamps and reached the blue Pacific Sea and the verdant 
isles of Panama, it seemed to be the threshold — as indeed it 
is — of a vast new untramelled world. There was nothing 
new or original in the thought, but perhaps the beating of 
surf upon long desolate shores has some peculiar voice of 
nature in telling of continents beyond. There, somewhere, 
was that "peak in Darien " where Balboa, nearly four 
hundred years ago, first saw the sunset in the Pacific, and 
here must have passed his trail of Indians, bearing ships' 
timbers under the lash. Here also hurried those enterprising 
buccaneers from Britain or Amsterdam, who were in too great 
a hurry to go round Cape Horn or through Magellan's 
Straits, hot on some predatory cruise adown this Great 
Pacific Coast, having built or stolen a ship at Panama. But 
all that belongs to the past; it is with the living present that 
we are now concerned. 

The Panama Canal, according to the Hay-Pauncefote 
Treaty made between Great Britain and the United States in 
1901, is to be open to the vessels of all nations on equal 
terms, whether in times of peace or war, whether to ships of 
commerce or of war, an arrangement for which the world has 
to thank Britain in the main, for she gave up her right for 
this. The canal, however, is not international in any other 
sense, as it is to be fortified and defended by the forces of 
the United States and operated by Americans of that republic 
alone. This occupation and control is vested in perpetuity 
in the United States by the republic of Panama, a republic 
brought to being in 1904; an off-shoot from the republic of 
Colombia, whose birthright the isthmus was, but lost by 
pronunciamentos in Panama, ended by machinations emanat- 
ing from the United States. It was a bitter blow to the 
Colombians, this deprivation of their valuable topographical 
heritage, and the United States are by no means free from 
charges of spoliation which were brought against them. 

On the other hand, the Colombians had largely their own 
folly to thank for its loss : procrastination, lack of enterprise 
and double-dealing. At the time I first crossed the isthmus, 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 47 

a little before the independence of the region was brought 
about, a revolution was in full swing in Colombia, and stories 
filtered down to Colon of rival generals burying each other 
alive after a battle ! I do not vouch for the truth of this, 
but Spanish Americans are in the habit of taking vengeance 
upon their defeated rivals, to this or a greater extent, as I 
have witnessed myself elsewhere. The contingent of the 
Colombian army at Panama at that period consisted mainly 
of negro boys, or semi-negro, some of them of such tender 
years that they could scarcely hold their heavy carbines on 
parade, as I saw them. It is to be recollected, however, that 
the Colombians were sore pressed by internal dissensions 
and that much of their "food for powder" had been used 
up, or was engaged elsewhere; that Bogotd, the capital of 
the country, is far away from Panama, two weeks' journey 
by steamer, mule and stage, in the heart of the Andes, and 
that the country was poor. Small wonder, therefore, that 
the isthmus was lost, with a great power looming up — the 
United States — on the near horizon. So if we cannot excuse 
these amenities of the rival generals aforesaid, we can sym- 
pathize with Colombia's loss, and also congratulate her on 
the progress she has made since, as described later on. 

The work of the Americans — who, in justice to them it 
must be recollected had often been grievously humbugged 
by the Colombians, and who, moreover, did pay the afore- 
said Colombians a round sum in gold dollars as com- 
pensation or purchase of the zone — began in 1904; and the 
first work, it was soon evident, was to render the place 
possible of habitation for the white man by sanitary measures. 
The most formidable foe was yellow fever, that malady of 
swift fatality which attacks the stranger and leaves the 
natives and the negroes immune; and an outbreak of this 
in April 1905 created a panic which bid fair, at the moment, 
to scatter the armies of science, doctors, engineers and all, 
which had assembled to do battle with mosquitoes, swamps, 
and inanimate rock and earth. Now nature, it would seem, 
has put the messenger of death by yellow fever and malaria 
into the possession of a small creature of the animal world — ■ 
the mosquito. And two varieties of these little fiends (which 
assuredly did not escape from Pandora's box, for they must 



48 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

have arrived in some little hell-case of their ov^n), the 
stegoynyia and the anopheles respectively, are the medium of 
propagation of these two diseases. War upon mosquitoes 
was therefore declared; and in the popular mind, in the 
United States, arose the picture of grave professors armed 
with cans of petroleum penetrating the dismal sw-amps to pour 
the fiery oil upon the stagnant waters, so to destroy the larvae. 
The malaria mosquito breeds in pools of stagnant fresh 
water where grasses and algas grow, all across the isthmus, 
whilst the yellow fever variety prefers the neighbourhood of 
towns, out of some affinity possibly for the human race ! 
The main preventatives were in proper draining of the sub- 
soil, protection from the bites of the insects by the free use 
of wire screens to the doors and windows of the houses, 
and, in the case of malaria, by the efficient use of quinine : 
all of which methods were successfully adopted. The city 
of Panama, as well as Colon, picturesque sinks of Spanish 
colonial and republican filth, were attacked and invaded 
by an army of four thousand men of the Sanitation Depart- 
ment ; house by house the towns were cleansed and fumi- 
gated; pavements, sewers and water-supplies made and pro- 
vided, and stagnant pools drained away. In my first visit 
to Colon I beheld houses built on piles over stagnant, evil- 
smelling pools, but when I returned they had been banished, 
and the modern science of sanitation enforced by a despotic 
— yet well-justified — dodov-regime had won a great victory 
such as the three hundred years of Spanish occupation had 
never attempted. The death-rate decreased rapidly year 
by year, and in 1907 it had fallen to 29 per thousand, and 
in 1908 to 13 per thousand, reckoned among the employes 
of the Canal Commission 44,000 strong; whilst among the 
employes of white American nationality the death-rate fell 
to only 3'84 per thousand. Here then is the romance of 
sanitation and its merciful dispensations brought about by 
the exigencies of commerce, as represented by the clever 
and energetic people of the United States. The Canal Com- 
mission has recently reported— not facetiously — that the 
isthmus of Panama now is "one of the healthiest places in 
the world " ! 

I shall never forget the appalling types of humanity I saw 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 49 

along the zone of the canal. Near the little wayside stations 
at which the train stopped upon the Panama Railway, groups 
of negro and native huts were seen, board shanties, built on 
piles over swamps, backed by rank vegetation and bathed 
in a sultry steam of hot sun and moist earth. But the types 
of humanity which inhabited them — oh, great Providence ! 
who created man in His image and likeness ! — grotesque 
mixtures of negroes and Chinese, or heaven knows what other 
nationalities; debauched, horrible; like human bugs lining 
this crack of the world, of the Panama Isthmus. On the 
veranda of one of these shanties, as the train passed slowly, 
a negro rushed out from the windowless interior, dressed 
only in an ancient short coat — it was an old ragged dinner- 
jacket, heaven knows where he had obtained it — and danced 
half-naked upon the boards in savage or drunken abandon. 
Other scenes of the domestic interior of these dwellings were 
laid bear to the eye of the passing passenger, such as it would 
scarcely be possible to describe with these chaste chronicles. 
I have seen the inhabitants and dwellings of the lowest 
natives in many wild lands, but is there anything to compare 
with the "nigger-shanty" of the semi-civilized negro, 
relapsed to barbarism in tropical America ? Even these are 
the prints of the sin of slavery with which the descendants of 
the Pilgrim Fathers and their European brethren defiled the 
shores of the New World when they tore the wretched negro 
from his native Africa. 

Far be it from us, however, to despise the negro as a race. 
If the Panama Canal is ever completed — and who need doubt 
it? — it will be due to the work, in great part, as far as manual 
labour is concerned, of the West Indian negroes, for these 
are employed in great numbers ; and now that their proper 
maintenance as regards food and sanitation is insisted upon, 
they are found to be much more efficient than under the 
preceding French regime. At first it was found that they 
suffered from a lack of vitality, and it became evident that 
this was due to their slovenly and insufficient methods of 
living. Proper cooked food was then provided for them and 
its cost deducted from their pay, with a result of greatly 
increased labour capacity and better health. Not a very 
remarkable discovery, you will say, kind reader, that the 



50 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

belly of the unfortunate nigger must be filled if he is to work ! 
The number of these useful people employed is about twenty- 
five thousand, and they receive 50 cents, equal to 2S. id. per 
day, clear of the cost of food and quarters. 

There is one pleasing feature about these people — pleasing, 
at least, to the British traveller. The negroes retain a strong 
affection for their ow'n homes in the West Indies, and for 
their British citizenship; and they will not settle on the 
isthmus, but return to the islands of Jamaica, Barbadoes, or 
others, whither they came. One day, in Panama I think it 
was, a burly negro approached me — possibly he had seen me 
before about the hotel courtyard — and extending his hand 
respectfully for a shake, said, "I am an Englishman as well; 
I live in Jamaica; please shake hands." Needless to say, I 
did so, congratulating him at the same time upon belonging 
to the freest and greatest people of the world ! I do not mean 
by the expression of this sentiment to be bombastic, nor to 
draw any unkind comparison with the Americans of the 
United States — our much esteemed "cousins" who love to 
arrogate to themselves that same title of leading civilization. 
It requires few arguments to show that the title is not theirs 
yet. They neither deserve nor could maintain it at present; 
when they can, and if they do, no one will grudge them their 
use of it. And this reminds me of an incident on board one 
of the Pacific Coast steamers on which I journeyed. The 
captain's nationality, as he himself had stated, was a matter 
of doubt; whether of American or British origin, for he was 
born in Canada of American parents and was a nationalized 
inhabitant of Chile. At the dinner-table — it happened to be 
the 4th of July- — the solitary Englishman was seated on one 
side of the captain and three Americans on the other; and 
the conversation turned upon matters of national supremacy. 
The Americans — one was an unaggressive botanist, another a 
haughty commercial traveller, and a third a stout Tammany 
politician going down to Peru to get a concession (good 
fellows all, withal) — naturally blew their country's trumpet 
resonantly, and the glories of American civilization and 
power reached a lofty pinnacle : glories flaunted purposely in 
the face of the solitary and reserved British Lion whose tail 
it was hoped thus to twist. The Lion awoke gently. "Gentle- 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 51 

men," he said, "it isn't necessary to stick up for the superi- 
ority of Britain ; it is such a palpable fact that Englishmen 
don't do it; it doesn't really require stating, don't you 
know ! " There seemed to be some logic about this which 
was incontrovertible, and no one disputed it. The Lion added 
that he had been looking about all over the ship before dinner 
for an American (the Americans had just come on board) to 
open a bottle of champagne in honour of the Fourth, but had 
not been able to find one. Now he hoped to have the 
pleasure. But the "proposition" struck the Tammany poli- 
tician so forcibly that he took upon himself to order and pay 
for the champagne in the act, and fraternity reigned supreme. 
Returning for a moment to the negro, there is a remarkable 
difference between the black peoples who live under British 
and the American regime, a fact common to the notice of the 
traveller. In Jamaica, Barbadoes, or others of the British 
West Indies we find a happy, contented, relatively simple- 
minded black population, amongst which the white man and 
white woman go openly and are respected and even loved. 
In the United States the very reverse is the case. The negro, 
in the northern states at least, is generally inclined to be 
insolent and objectionable, and is correspondingly repressed 
by the white American, and hated as a being of inferior race 
and an upstart; whilst in many districts of the south and 
south-west white women go in fear where negroes are; and 
race-hatred, fighting, lynchings and burnings are of common 
occurrence, and scarcely excite notice in the American daily 
papers. What is the reason ? The answer embodies the 
difference between the British and the American people. The 
one being of a governing and "imperial " character; the other 
non-imperial and parochial. The negro and the white man 
can live contentedly side by side in an empire, but not in a 
republic, and this admits of very palpable explanation. But 
the matter of the negro in the United States is one which 
cannot be lightly dismissed ; it is a terrible problem for the 
Americans : a terrible legacy resulting from the outrage 
perpetrated upon Nature in tearing the black race from the 
continent where Nature had brought them into being. Will 
Nature some day forgive man for this outrage ? Shall some 
resolution of the problem work itself out among the coloured 

E 2 



52 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

inhabitants of the United States? In the British Antilles, 
the beautiful summer isles of Jamaica, Trinidad, or Barbadoes 
Nature seems to have forgiven the rape which was committed 
against her to some extent in a happy, harmless negro crowd; 
but in the United States she is punishing the white man 
severely for his act. The negro is an inferior being : it is 
only cant which pretends that he can ever be the equal of the 
white; he is a child; a development where nature stopped 
short. What is to be done with him ? The Americans to 
whom the New World was given, and who in their own new 
liberty made beasts of burden of their kind, must evolve 
the answer in tears and penitence ! 

The matter of nationality on the Panama Canal works is 
not without interest. Among the European labourers — there 
were six thousand at work last year — were about equal 
numbers of Spaniards, Italians and Greeks. The Spaniards 
and Italians were physically superior to the Greeks; the 
Italians were often impatient and intractable under American 
control, whilst the Spaniards, chiefly natives of Galicia and 
Castile, were the superior of all in working capacity and in 
amenity to discipline ; and at present they have almost 
replaced the other Europeans. The Spaniards, in common 
with other European labourers, earn thirty shillings per week 
outside food and lodging, which are provided. They seem 
to suffer no inconvenience from the climate, even working in 
the mid-day sun ; but they do not settle on the zone, preferring 
to seek fortune elsewhere with their savings, or to return 
home. For the white American employes, life and social 
conditions are well organized, with clubs established under 
the excellent auspices of the Young Men's Christian Associa- 
tion; libraries, gymnasia, etc., whilst the women and children 
live without fear of ill-health whatever. Indeed, the whole 
colony and work, under the capable American administration, 
is worthy of much praise. If the American administ^ation 
can keep clear of the fatal "graft," or financial misdealing 
which reared its sinister head among them not long ago, their 
work may be morally clean. This remains to be seen, and 
with American home practice before them, as in New York 
and San Francisco, as described in another chapter, it is 
doubtful if this will be altogether possible. The Americans 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 53 

are now filling all the administrative posts, it is stated, upon 
the canal zone, having got rid of any Englishmen or other 
foreigners who held them ! 

The Panama Canal, it has been decided after twenty-seven 
years of construction work (including the French regime), is 
to be a lock-canal. This was decided against the Majority- 
report of the Board of Engineers appointed by the American 
Executive to study the question, on the advice of other 
experts; and the tide-level plan (which had also been in 
principle that of De Lesseps at first) was afterwards modified 
to the lock-system. An Act of Congress in 1906 authorized 
a lock-canal, which should rise from sea-level to an eleva- 
tion of 85 feet; a minimum depth of 41 feet; with three locks 
at each side, no feet wide and 1,000 feet long. The locks 
are to be in duplicate, so that two vessels may be passed 
through simultaneously, or in opposite directions. As to the 
matter of the tides, on the Atlantic side the rise and fall 
is practically nil; whilst at La Boca, the Panama or Pacific 
side, the range is 10 feet above and 10 feet below average 
sea-level : a total of 20 feet. The length of the canal from 
shore to shore will be 41 miles, with 4 miles of channel 
dredging at each end, or a total of nearly 50 miles. Of 
the centre part the famous Culebra and other cuts call 
for 4 miles of rock excavation through the backbone of the 
isthmian range. But the great difficulties in the way of the 
construction of this colossal work are not the rock cuts only : 
the rivers which have to be controlled en route ; the flood 
waters to be repressed and used for locking purposes; the 
treacherous dam-sites, and the great head of water which 
must rest thereon — these are other matters being overcome. 

But the genius of the Anglo-American, his mighty steam- 
shovels, his sea of railway lines, his swarming hordes of 
eager workmen seem as if they shall conquer. Explosion 
and spoil-trains follow each other ceaselessly, and the work, 
splendidly organized and carried on, reveals the pride of a 
nation of engineers in its regimen and result. The American 
engineers-in-chief have calculated — nay, promised — that the 
work shall be completed in 191 5, and that in that year we 
may sail through the Panama Canal upon a vessel and behold 
its stupendous cuttings from the deck. Let us add Dei 



54 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Gracii; let us reverently add a prayer for the continuance of 
the spirit which at length may cast mountains into the sea 
and bid the "everlasting doors " to be lifted up ! ^ 

The building of the Canal of Panama has opened up inter- 
esting questions regarding commerce and shortening of 
distances, into which it would be beyond the scope of this 
book to enter at much length. The primary object of the 
canal is, of course, to shorten distances, and to render possible 
the unbroken ocean freights across the world : the cheaper 
transport of wind and wave and steam of the "silent high- 
way " as contrasted with the wheels and steam of the trans- 
continental railway^. Accompanying this peaceful purpose, 
of course, as far as the United States are concerned, must be 
added the strategic factor : the swifter passage of warships 
from their Atlantic to their Pacific coasts, for the canal will 
eliminate from the map, in this sense, the geography of South 
\/ America. The distance from New York to Panama by sea 
will thus be shortened by 8,400 miles; and similarly to any 
port of Central America, California, British Columbia, etc. ; 
whilst from New York to places south of Panama it will 
be shortened from 8,400 to about 1,000 miles, or an average 
of, say, 5,000 miles, for the west coast of South America. 
Thus the Great Pacific Coast benefits greatly, and the corre- 
sponding shortening of steaming distances from Liverpool, 
Antwerp, etc., for the North and South Pacific Coasts respect- 
ively are 6,000 and 2,500 miles. Further interesting changes 
in the geographical relations as to steaming distance are those 
which will be brought about between Europe and New York 
and Asiatic points which I will reproduce here as bearing in 
an important way upon our study of the Great Pacific Coast. 
"From New York to Yokohama, via San Francisco, the 
reduction is 3,729 miles, bringing the Japanese port 1,805 miles 
nearer to New York than to Liverpool. From New York to 
Shanghai the reduction is 1,629 miles, which leaves Liverpool 
295 miles nearer to Shanghai. The Panama Canal will not 
shorten the distance between New York and Hong Kong, 
Suez being still the shorter route, and even to Manila the 
reduction via Panama is only 16 miles; moreover, this small 

' For a technical description of the canal, see the excellent work, TAe 
Panama Canal and its Builders^ by Dr. Vaughan-Cornish. 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 55 

reduction is by way of San Francisco and Yokohama. The 
ail-American route from New York to Manila via Panama, 
Honolulu, and Guam is 128 miles longer than that via Suez. 
As we go farther south in the Pacific, however, the Panama 
route again is the shorter from New York. Thus the distance 
to Sydney is shortened by 3,806 miles (via Tahiti), the 
distance being 2,382 less than that between Liverpool and 
Sydney via Colombo, Adelaide, and Melbourne. The reduc- 
tion between New York and Wellington, N.Z., will be 2,542 
miles, bringing Wellington 2,759 miles nearer to New York 
than to Liverpool. The distance between Liverpool and 
Wellington via the canal is slightly less than that by the 
Straits of Magellan. There is also a reduction of distance 
between Liverpool and the northern parts of the Siberian 
coast. Otherwise the Panama Canal does not shorten dis- 
tances between European ports and those on the "Oriental " 
side of the Pacific, the route having been short-circuited by 
the construction of the Suez Canal." - 

The importance of the island of Jamaica, with its great 
harbour of Kingston, will doubtless be augmented due to its 
position near the entrance-line of the canal on this vast new 
world-route of commerce. 

At the reading and discussion of a paper upon the canal, at 
the Royal Geographical Society in November igo8, which I 
attended, and from which the above extract of distances is 
taken, some interesting questions arose, and the use, future, 
and success of the canal were alternately lauded and con- 
demned. As to the cost of this great work the Government 
of the United States has been authorized to spend 185 million 
dollars, including the 50 million of the purchase price; but 
the estimates made since then have been rapidly growing — it 
is a huge machine whose appetite comes with eating — and 
now stands at least at 250 million, with a possible 500 million 
dollars; or, say, 100 million sterling! Thus does Nature 
take toll of intelligent man who would carve a way through 
the rocky ribs she raised up in the Eocene, before the dawn 
of life upon the earth. 

Central America, of which the Lsthmus of Panama is but 

- Dr. Vaughan-Cornish : " The Panama Canal," Journal of the Royal 
Geographical Socieiy^ 1909. 



56 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the thinnest portion, was, in earlier geological epochs, an 
archipelago with a number of straits; but in the period 
mentioned a continuous range arose out of the sea at the time 
of the birth of the Andes, and absolutely barred the way from 
sea to sea, going up to ten thousand and twelve thousand feet 
above sea-level in places. But Nature left some low gaps, 
as at Panama, Nicaragua and Tehuantepec. 

This extremely interesting region of Central America, 
where the structural topography and the things of the organic 
world are so marked and varied as never to cease to excite the 
wonder and appreciation of the traveller, is, speaking geo- 
graphically, a division between North and South America, 
beginning with the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Mexico and 
extending southwardly to the Isthmus of Panama. The 
singular formation of this region is apparent upon glancing 
at the map ; a series of narrow isthmuses or necks of land 
trending south-east to where they hook on to the massive 
mainland of South America by their attachment of the 
Panama Isthmus. The extent of the region thus geographic- 
ally termed Central America from Tehuantepec to Panama is 
some eight hundred miles, and it is bounded on the east by 
the Atlantic waters of the Caribbean Sea, and on the west it 
forms part of the Great Pacific Coast. The physiographical 
lines of the country appear to associate it with the Antilles, 
and its irregular mountain and plateau character, studded with 
numerous volcanoes, attests the igneous formation of the 
region. The soil is, throughout the greater area from Costa 
Rica to Guatemala, of volcanic origin, and exceedingly 
fertile from this reason. The explosive character of the 
eruption from these Central American volcanoes has scattered 
scoriae and ashes to considerable distances, and the decom- 
position of these has formed thick deposits of fertile soil. 
Thus the chemical constituents of the earth's raging interior 
have transmigrated into the component elements of the finest 
bananas and coffee which have pleased the world. Through- 
out this region volcanoes and craters may be enumerated by 
the hundred; they give a mountainous structure to the land 
of high plateaux, whilst the same subterraneous forces have 
built up or thrust up the barriers which now close the old 
straits of this former archipelago to passage from the 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 57 

Atlantic to the Pacific. Well might the old conquistadores 
and all those who searched so perseveringly for the "secret 
of the strait " have gone home declaring that there was a 
strait somewhere, but that nature had so thickly studded the 
place with islands and promontories that it w-as concealed. 
Had they arrived in earlier geological epochs they might 
have found one ! 

The volcanoes of this part of the earth's surface, from the 
great Popocatepetl of Mexico (which was smoking when 
Cortes passed it, but is quiescent now), southward to Turri- 
alba, active and angry, in Costa Rica, show- the immense 
potence of these underground activities at this joint in the 
earth's harness, which filled up the interoceanic waterways 
of long ago. Guatemala and other parts of Central America 
possess more volcanoes than any other country in the world; 
and their capital cities have been overwhelmed and destroyed 
thereby on frequent occasions. 

The rivers of Central America on the Pacific side are 
generally small, as the line of greater elevation, the divortia 
aquarum formed by the Cordillera, is, as ever in Andine 
countries, nearest to the Pacific. On the Atlantic side the 
rivers are larger, the largest of all being the Usumacinta, 
more than six hundred miles from its source in Guatemala 
to its mouth in Tabasco, in Mexican territory. The climate 
of Central America is governed by the topography, with 
three natural zones, the tierra caliente, or hot tropical low- 
lands up to about 2,000 feet elevation, with a mean annual 
temperature from 80° to 73" F.; the tierra templada, or tem- 
perate zone, 2,000 to 5,000 feet, 73" to 63" F. ; and the tierra 
jria, or cold lands, above 5,000, where frosts occur. The 
rainfall varies greatly : in British Honduras, on the Atlantic 
side, reaching 71 inches; 180 in Vera Paz in Central Guate- 
mala; 244 in Greytow^n on the Atlantic side of Nicaragua; 
and on the Pacific side 54 inches at San Salvador. 

The flora of this American isthmian region is tropical ; 
the forests containing mahogany, cedar, logwood, cocoa 
palms, mangroves, india-rubber, fibrous plants, orchids and 
other beautiful flower forms ; tropical fruits, especially the 
banana; whilst as to the fauna it is equally varied, including 
such animals as the jaguar, the puma, the tapir, manatee, 



58 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

peccary, ant-eater, monkeys, sloth; vultures and innumerable 
birds, some of the most gorgeous plumage, and with more 
than 260 species. Noxious insects are also plentiful ; and 
the malarias and fevers of the lowlands are a scourge to the 
imported white races. 

The indigenous peoples of Central America were the Maya 
Indians of Yucatan, and other natives, whilst the Aztecs of 
Mexico have left the evidences of a southward movement. 
The beautiful ruins left in Palenque and Yucatan in Mexico, 
at Quirigua and Santa Lucia in Guatemala, Copan, in Hon- 
duras, and other points are witnesses to these former civili^.a- 
tions. Pure Indians at the present time are found principally 
in Guatemala and Yucatan ; the populations of the other 
Central American states being principally the Spanish- 
American mixed race. 

Politically this region is divided into various states or 
independent republics. As a rule these are known to the 
outside world principally by their names alone, and also by 
the habit (which some of them are now growing out of, it is 
v/ pleasing to record) of borrowing money in England and 
neglecting to pay it back or meet the interest upon it ! In 
London there is an institution known as the "Corporation 
of Foreign Bondholders," which could interesting and 
tortuous tales unfold regarding these far-off eyries of Don 
Quixote, Castroic bombast, courtesy, double-dealing, high- 
mindedness in hospitality and baseness in finance, such as 
the singular and complex peoples of Spanish-American race 
embody. 

From Mexico southwards these beautiful little republics — 
for dowered they are generally with much beauty of nature 
in mountain scenery, vegetation and climate, and with beauty 
architecturally these peoples have fashioned their cities and 
their capitals and homes — are known by the following names : 
Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica 
and Panama — the latter but of recent birth, from a Colombian 
mother and a Yankee father, as we have seen. The word 
"Yankee," as I have elsewhere explained, is used not in an 
offensive sense as the Spanish-Americans use it, but as a 
distinctive nomenclature. These republics might be sweep- 
ingly described, in company with South America, as being 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 59 

in the great "INIanana" belt, extending from Mexico south- 
wardly to Cape Horn. This great "Maiiana" belt of 
Spanish-America, it is not rash to say, is a great Land of 
Opportunity of which this century will see the development 
—Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and all the other sisterhood. 

The form of Government in these Spanish-American 
republics is generally that of a federation of the various 
states or provinces of which each republic is composed, with 
a central or supreme administration in the national capital ; 
the states controlling their own local affairs. These have 
been modelled to some extent upon the system of the United 
States, and France. The various deputies and senators who 
represent the provinces are elected by popular vote, although 
in the majority of cases this voting is far from being free 
from political manipulation or intimidation. The Supreme 
Government, or its machinery, is generally divided into three 
departments — the legislature, consisting of the chambers of 
senators and deputies known collectively as the Congress ; 
the judiciary, of the various courts and judges throughout 
the country; and the executive, consisting of the president 
and his cabinet ministers. The plan and details of this civic 
machinery of self-government is excellently thought out and 
established, and, in theory, should give* a perfection of 
administration. But at present many of these countries do 
but furnish instances of the difference between theory and 
practice in human affairs, and bring to mind the sage Scot- 
tish proverb regarding the plans of mice and men ! In this 
connection one notable trait of the Spanish people springs 
into evidence — that as a community they love to enact splen- 
did law-systems; reserving individually the right to con- 
travene them. This markes the main difference between 
them and — for example — the British, who individually are 
a law-abiding people but put less theory of perfection into 
their institutions. In justice, however, to the Spanish- 
American peoples it must be said that they have been 
only recently established; and that they are in some cases — 
especially in Mexico — acquiring real stability. Time works 
wonders and may turn the defects of the Spanish peoples into 
virtues with its lapse ! Be it as it may, these peoples have 
some characteristics which are superior to the Anglo- 



60 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

American civilization of the United States which shares the 
New World with them. Their refusal or inability to sacrifice 
their native traits of idealism to the exigencies of sheer 
commercialism— as expounded by Americans — may be a wise 
provision of nature ; guarding a separate form of civilization 
in that hemisphere for the world's future conduct of affairs. 
I have made a close study of the Mexican and Peruvian 
peoples in my books upon those countries, to which I beg 
to refer the reader who may be interested to follow the 
subject more in detail.^ 

Central America, or rather the Isthmian region included 
in the five republics thereof, excluding Panama, has shown 
during the past few years a certain endeavour towards 
political consolidation and general advancement. Arbitra- 
tion treaties and institutions, scientific congresses and other 
movements have grown to being in those turbulent and fertile 
regions; and whilst these protestations, accompanied as ever 
in Spanish-American communities by outbursts of impas- 
sioned oratory and classical allusion, are more or less evan- 
escent and explosive, they show' that the spirit of progress 
is far from being absent or non-existent. It is to be recol- 
lected that all these five small states — Guatemala, Honduras, 
Nicaragua, Salvador and Costa Rica, after throwing off the 
rule of Spain in 1821 (even under Spanish rule they formed 
one Crown colony, as distinguished from Mexico and 
Peru), constituted a republic under one administration until 
1838, when the federation was dissolved. During the latter 
half of last century these political entities were often engaged 
in flying at each others' throats over questions of boundary, 
privilege, national honour and other matters, alternating 
with repudiation of foreign debts and other incidents of the 
national life of Spanish-American communities. Indeed, it 
was of but recent years that a British w-arship w-as forced to 
take toll of the customs of the chief Nicaraguan port, in 
settlement of continually repudiated debts. I was in San 
Francisco at the time, and recollect that the incident caused 
some heart-burning among the more strenuous of the sup- 
porters of the (imaginary attributes, as contrasted with the 
real principle) of the Monroe Doctrine in California and the 

1 '■'■Peru" and '^Mexico" London, 1908, 1909. 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 61 

United States generally. Indignation at the British act was 
expressed; but since that time the rise of "Castroism" and 
the epoch of necessary "big stick" wielding by the United 
States have brought the Americans to feel that they cannot 
be sponsors for the questionable financial acts of these 
southern neighbours. None will deny that it was — and is — a 
laudable spirit which would protect the weak nation against 
the strong, but even in the American hemisphere it is being 
learned that weakness cannot excuse dishonesty. In June 
of 1909 it was the turn of American warships to menace 
Nicaragua with punishment for the ill treatment of American 
citizens in that country. Moreover, the United States has 
at times taken to itself to play the role of bully — whether 
justifiably or not is not to be judged here. "We must whip 
Chile ! " was the legend inscribed in huge letters on the 
posters of American newspapers on the occasion of the 
journey of the Chilean warship — the Itata— down the Great 
Pacific Coast to Iquique a few years ago, as I recollect it. 
It did not really come to "whipping" Chile, however, and 
although doubtless it could have been done, Chile would 
have proved a difficult boy to chastise. I have spoken of the 
jealous relation between the Chileans and the United States 
elsewhere ; and they constitute a present political factor on 
the coast. 

It is now the dream of the Central American International 
Bureau (an institution created in September of 1908, and 
modelled on the International Bureau at Washington), and 
the new Central American Court of Arbitration, established 
recently at Cartago, to bring about greater solidarity among 
the Central American republics. Possibly, also, their 
aim may tend towards political unification again ; and it 
is to be recollected that the federation of these states, 
hand in hand with a real development of their resources, 
might create a new potent nation in America. For, excluding 
British Honduras — that small foothold of Britain on the 
Atlantic side which is geographically part of this region — the 
area of Central America is nearly two hundred and twenty 
thousand square miles, with a population of some four million 
people. The present objects of the Bureau, whose centre of 
operations and headquarters are in the capital city of Guate- 



62 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

mala, which has this honour by historical priority, may best 
be gathered from the words of the orators at its inauguration. 
These serve at the same time to indicate the style of speech 
and sentiments of the Central American people. 

"With what enthusiasm, emotion and hope does Guate- 
mala welcome this institution, arising out of the recent 
treaties signed at Washington ! The people of Guatemala 
feel that this event, which is, in a sense, complementary to 
our glorious work of independence (from Spain), will 
undoubtedly bring about a bright future for the isthmus, 
and will pursue one ideal for the welfare of all the people 
of the former union. The drawing together of these by 
peace and harmony, by identity of aims and aspirations, and 
the suppression of opinions inspired by interest and greed 
and their substitution by aspirations advised by justice and 
reason will^ — notwithstanding incredulous and mistaken 
criticism (some rather sarcastic remarks in the American 
and European press as to the probable durability of this 
regime, I should explain, had been made), will bring about 
that inevitable law which leads towards the beginning 
of new nations. The bonds of a common Iberian origin, 
of legislation, of the beautiful Castilian language, identity 
of customs, similarity of aims, analogy of aspirations, etc., 
is due to the creation of this wide-reaching International 
Bureau." 

New federal compacts were entered into, and the matter 
terminated with protestations of everlasting peace and 
brotherhood. It is unfortunate to have to record that a short 
time afterwards the peace was broken by a revolution in 
Honduras, and some severe bloodshed ensued, in which 
other of the states became involved. So acute did the situa- 
tion become and remain that the presidents of Mexico and 
the United States then appointed emissaries to inquire into 
the unrest and abuse of power, with the design of enforcing 
respect for international law and the tenets of the late high- 
sounding compacts and conventions of Central America. 
Probably, however, this miniature "Hague" institution of 
these five Isthmian republics will be of value to the Central 
American people, and with the improving years of this 
century a single republic of Central America may emerge, to 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 63 

be welcomed of British Bondholders and observers of race- 
development in the Americans. 

Next against the republic of Panama, to the northward, 
we come to the little republic of Costa Rica, washed on its 
eastern side by the Atlantic waters of the Caribbean Sea, 
and on the vilest by the Pacific Ocean — a strip of land some 
250 miles in length and 150 wide, with an area of about 
23,000 square miles and a population of some 350,000 souls. 
This little Spanish-American entity enjoys some distinctions 
which mark out for it a certain individuality. It' has been 
described as the most flourishing of the Central American 
States; its inhabitants, descendants of Spaniards from 
Galicia, are the least mixed with aboriginal strain of any of 
these communities, and are industrious and prosperous; its 
scenery is diversified and picturesque ; its soil is fertile, and 
its coffee and bananas have earned a world-wide reputation 
for their excellence. Costa Rica is Spanish for "Rich Coast," 
and the designation is deserved. 

The topographical conditions of the country are of marked 
interest. Less than seventy miles separate the waters of the 
Pacific and Atlantic Oceans in the narrowest part, and the 
Sierra Talamanca which traverses the country longitudinally 
and forms the divortia aquarum of the watersheds is 
depressed near Cartago and gives birth to two streams which 
flow to the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans respectively. From 
the summit of its high volcano of Irazu — 11,200 feet eleva- 
tion — whose active fires have perturbed with earthquake 
ravages from time to time the surrounding region, the eyes 
of the traveller discerns both the Pacific and the Atlantic 
waters. The numerous streams and fertile valleys of both 
littorals form a happy environment to a summer climate. On 
the Pacific Coast are two large bays, those of Nicoya, with 
its port of entry of Puntarenas, and the Dulce Gulf; whilst 
on the Caribbean Sea, Port Limon is the main harbour, and 
this is connected with the capital, San Jose, by a railway 
system 115 miles long. 

The mountain formation of this part of Central America 
shows the old granite and igneous rocks, with the later 
Cretaceous and Tertiary formations rising up subordinate 
thereto, in obedience to the cordilleran formation. The 



64 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

climate is generally temperate, without extremes of heat and 
cold, with, at San Jose, the capital, whose elevation is 3,700 
feet, that "perpetual spring" which has generally fallen to 
the lot of these favoured regions of Spanish America ; with a 
mean annual temperature of 68° F. Tropical forests extend 
from the coast lowlands up the mountain slopes, yielding 
native cedar, oak, mahogany and other characteristic timbers 
of tropical America. Consequent upon the considerable rainfall 
—140 inches at Port Limon, the profuse vegetation has over- 
laid the rock strata with deep deposits of rich earth, which 
brings forth the most exquisite coffee, whilst the banana 
culture has grown to an extraordinary extent, and takes first 
place in exports, to the yearly value of one and a half million 
dollars. Like other countries in the great "Mariana and 
banana zone," any product from india-rubber to cereals, from 
tropic to temperate, are obtained, according to the elevation 
of this or that locality. Costa Rica is a rubber-producing 
country, and a gold, coffee, chocolate, coal, copper, mercury 
and pearl producing land — bounties of the vegetable and 
mineral world only found in such variety in these regions of 
Spanish America. It is one of those lands where, weary of 
his wanderings and of the world, the traveller might hope 
to sojourn till the end of his earthly span in ease and 
comfort ! 

Separated from its southern neighbour by the San Juan 
River and Lake Nicaragua is the republic of that name. 
Nicaragua is best known in the mind of the European and 
North American by its possession of an alternative route for 
a trans-isthmian canal ; and, indeed, at one time there were 
not w'anting those who claimed a superior facility for that 
route over Panama. This republic, politically, has earned 
for itself some notoriety regarding the Central-American 
peace, and questions arose with the United States upon 
matters of international law. Yet the inhabitants as a whole 
are as law-abiding as their neighbours, and suffer principally 
from the acts of ambitious politicians. The Arbitration Court 
was impulsed from Corinto, to the port's credit. 

The area of Nicaragua is slightly under 50,000 square 
miles, and its population numbers about 500,000, of which 
about 40,000 are uncivilized Indians. The great bulk of the 




:^ 




o 

►4 






THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 65 

population consists of the aborigines, or Indians, with some 
mulattoes, negroes and mixed races, with but a scanty pro- 
portion of people of pure European race. Managua, the 
capital, on the great lake of the same name, has some 35,000 
inhabitants. The chief products are agricultural; coffee 
taking first rank, whilst bananas, cocoa, sugar, tobacco, are 
also widely cultivated and exported. Rubber is also col- 
lected and exported, and some planting has been done of 
rubber trees : whilst mahogany, cedar and other valuable 
timbers are cut and marketed. As to minerals some gold 
mines are worked. The republic is striving to improve her 
roads and augment her railways, of which latter 160 miles are 
national property, in connection with the lake and river 
steamboats. A treaty of peace and commerce with Great 
Britain was signified and ratified in 1906. 

Salvador is a small fertile country with a history of revolu- 
tions and wars; fronting upon the Pacific Coast between its 
neighbours, Nicaragua and Guatemala, to the south-east 
and north-west respectively ; and, blocked on the north by 
Honduras, she has no outlet to the Atlantic waters or Carib- 
bean Sea. She is, therefore, the only Central American 
State which does not enjoy interoceanic communication and 
outlet through her own territory. The area of 13,000 square 
miles contain a population of 1,050,000 inhabitants; the 
frontage on the ocean is 185 miles from its eastern boundary 
of the Gulf of Fonseca to the Paz River on the west; whilst 
the width of the country is some 65 miles. Salvador is, 
in effect, mainly a strip of Andine littoral, for the great 
Cordillera is at its back, giving it in addition a tableland of 
2,000 to 2,300 feet about sea-level. The volcanic belt which 
is so marked a feature of Guatemala to the north forms part 
of Salvador. Here is the volcano Izalco, "Central America's 
Lighthouse," for it is always in activity, its fitful flames light- 
ing up the mariner's course far out at sea. Yet its elevation 
is only six thousand feet, and it came to being only in 1770 — 
a recent creation like Jorullo in Mexico. Of four other prin- 
cipal volcanoes San Vicente, 7,870 feet altitude, of elegant 
and regular form attracts the eye, with its sister peaks of 
similar beauty and sinister portent. Of rivers Salvador has 
few : the Lempa, rising in Guatemala, crosses the country, 

F 



66 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

and after a course of 250 miles empties into the Pacific. Tliis 
river is navigable for ninety miles from its mouth. The 
principal seaports are Acajutla, the terminus of the railway 
from the capital, San Salvador, and La Libertad, thirty 
miles from the capital by road. On the Gulf of Fonseca is 
La Union, the outlet port for the fertile eastern zone, a 
position of geographical advantage which, moreover, is upon 
the route which will be traversed some day by the Pan- 
American Railroad — the inter-continental dream of the 
Columbian world. A handsome city is the capital, with 
some 60,000 inhabitants; the seat of government and the 
centre of trade. The people of this little land of much 
natural resource live principally by agriculture; for its varied 
flora and products of the three natural Andine zones of coast, 
temperate lands and highlands, yield the usual Central 
American products, such as chocolate, cotton, sugar, indigo, 
bananas, henequen or hemp. As to its mineral resources, 
gold and silver bullion and ores are exported to some extent. 
The railway system is being extended to join that of 
Guatemala. 

Honduras is about 46,280 square miles in area, with a 
population somewhat over half a million ; the bulk of which 
consists of aborigines or Indians, some ninety thousand of 
which are uncivilized. The ancient city of Tegucigalpa, 
with thirty-five thousand inhabitants, is the capital. The 
main port on the Pacific is Amalpa, where the country has 
a narrow frontage on the ocean ; and on the Atlantic, Puerto 
Cortes, with various lesser ports. Honduras has very con- 
siderable mineral resources : gold, silver, copper and other 
numerous metalliferous minerals being found, and in some 
cases worked. The usual Central American products of 
timber, rubber, bananas, coffee, etc., are staple products; 
cattle-breeding is an important industry. To encourage all 
these matters the Government grants facilities, but labour 
at present is scarce. The interoceanic railway between the 
Atlantic and Pacific ports is well under way. Honduras owes 
its name, which is the Spanish for "Depths," to its broken 
topographical configuration. 

Guatemala has for its neighbours on the north the 
republic of Mexico and that small outpost of the British 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 67 

empire, British Honduras, or Belize: the only "red" area, 
save British Guiana, to be encountered in all Spanish 
America. The northern part of Guatemala extends into the 
peninsula of Yucatan, and the republic has a narrow strip 
giving outlet to Atlantic waters on the Gulf of Honduras 
and Caribbean Sea, British Honduras blocking out the 
eastern coast-line with this exception. On the Great Pacific 
Coast, however, she has a frontage of 155 miles, whilst her 
area of 48,000 square miles is slightly greater than that of 
Honduras and somewhat less than that of Nicaragua. The 
population numbers two million people. Guatemala also 
possesses an interoceanic railway, from Puerto Barrios on 
the Caribbean Sea to San Jose on the Pacific; a line 270 
miles long, giving access to the handsome capital, Guatemala 
City, which stands at a distance of seventy-five miles from 
the Pacific terminus; and thence its construction, which 
involved some heavy work, has been carried to the shore of 
the Caribbean Sea. 

The country is traversed by the Cordillera of the Andes, 
with the general trend of that great chain from north-west 
to south-east, leaving a narrow Pacific littoral of forty to 
fifty miles in width — the most thickly populated portion. 
The Atlantic seaports are good harbours : the Pacific are 
more open. Five lines of steamers call at San Jose, linking 
the port with all the ports of the Great Pacific Coast, from 
San Francisco to Valparaiso. 

The city of Guatemala is situated in a broad fertile plain, 
4,594 feet above sea-level, and, seen from the heights of the 
hills which form its environment, it presents a handsome and 
picturesque whole, backed by the great Andine mountains, 
whence the volcanoes of Fuego and Agua — Fire and Water, 
well so named — arise. The city covers a considerable area; 
it is well laid out with some fine public buildings; and, as 
an important centre dating from the colonial regime, pos- 
sesses numerous structures of the characteristic architecture 
of that period, among which the National Palace, the 
cathedral and the various churches are prominent. The dwell- 
ing-houses, however, are wisely built generally of one storey; 
for Guatemala is in that earthquake zone where nature takes 
such terrible toll of life from toppling walls. Nothwithstand* 
p 2 



68 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

ing this, the dwelHng-houses are often handsome and 
spacious, with that pleasing structure of patio and interior 
gardens generally encountered in Hispanic home archi- 
tecture. 

The present city is the third capital which the ravages of 
nature in earthquake shocks have rendered it necessary to 
build; for Guatemala la Antigua, the second capital, was 
destroyed by an earthquake shock in 1773, when the wrath of 
the volcano Agua, at whose foot it was situated, twenty miles 
away from the present site, was let loose upon it ; as was also 
the case with its predecessor Guatemala Vieja, in 1541, 
which was wiped out by a crater-lake from the same source. 
Handsome houses, tree-planted avenues, splendid parks and 
public gardens, statues, theatres where Italian opera ever 
finds packed audiences, baths, railway stations, schools, the 
inevitable and engaging plaza, colleges of law, medicine, 
engineering, etc., form some of the features of this pleasing 
and important centre of Spanish-American civilization on 
the Pacific. 

Guatemala was the home of the great Quiche nation, one 
of those famous civilizations of pre-historic America, which 
was overthrown by the conquistador Alvarado, in 1542, and 
at Santa Cruz de Quiche it was that the battle was fought in 
which the Spanish arms finally triumphed. Quezaltenango — 
"The Town of the Green Feather" — elevation 7,657 feet — is 
a place of historical interest, where some of the ancient native 
arts are still carried on. Indeed the country generally is of 
much historic interest. I have referred to the ravages of 
volcano and earthquake in Guatemala's history, and it is 
stated that she possesses, perhaps, the distinction of having 
more volcanoes than any other country in the world. Front- 
ing on the Pacific coast is a series of stupendous cones, from 
ten thousand to twelve thousand feet elevation above the sea, 
and distant therefrom some fifty miles, rising from the coast 
zone unhidden from the view by intermediary hills, and 
commanding the attention of the voyager from the deck of 
the passing mail steamer. ^ One of these, Santa Maria (a 
terrible mother-saint indeed!), is 11,480 feet in altitude, and 

' A full account of these volcanoes, by Dr. Tempest Anderson, appears in 
the Royal Geographical Journal^ May, 1908. 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 69 

in October 1902 she, after an appalling earthquake in which 
the unfortunate inhabitants of the town of Quezaltenango 
perished to more than a thousand, opened out a great new 
crater. Indeed, earthquakes and tidal waves along this 
afflicted coast had been but premonitory symptoms of this 
disaster, and the Mexican sister peak, ever active, of Colima, 
aw-ay to the north, and the volcanoes of the neighbouring 
states of Nicaragua and Salvador, as well as the terrible erup- 
tions of St. Vincent and Martinique, far away in the Caribbean 
Sea — all at or near the same time, attested the activity of the 
infernal and internal fires in the great safety-valve region 
of the earth's surface. The panic-bearing noise of the 
"retumbos," or subterranean roarings of the earthquakes 
(such as I have heard in Chile and Peru) were also the pre- 
cursor to an appalling tidal wave, which swept the Pacific 
coast of Salvador with three great waves, washing out coast- 
villages and killing many persons. 

The foothills of this Pacific chain are an area of Quater- 
nary-epoch formation of peculiar fertility, and this is covered 
with coffee plantations, yielding the berry which has rendered 
the name of Guatemala famous. These were largely devas- 
tated. The whole side of the mountain of Santa Maria had 
been blown away by the eruption, forming precipices thou- 
sands of feet in height ; the surrounding region was covered 
deep in ashes; and the cloud which was vomited from that 
fearful aperture rose towards heaven to an enormous height, 
which the captain of a passing steamer far out at sea 
measured with his sextant as eighteen miles ! 

But, notwithstanding its seismic dangers, Guatemala is a 
country of splendid future. From earthquake-dust we turn 
to the fertility of climate and environment which produces 
such splendours of the vegetable world as might make the 
mouth of the dweller on temperate British shores to water ! 
Its three zones, hot, cold and temperate, as ever in these 
cordilleran regions, produce coffee, cocoa, bananas, sugar- 
cane, cotton ; and so splendid a profusion and variety of 
tropical and sub-tropical fruits as form the basis of an 
important export trade. The plantains — resembling the 
bananas — are exceedingly palatable and nutritive, grow-ing 
to twelve inches long ; and it is stated that a small plantation, 



V 



70 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

forty feet square, of this fruit will yield four thousand pounds 
of the dried fruit — nutritive substance which, it is said, will 
support fifty persons as against wheat on a similar area which 
would support only two ! Viva the plantain, then ! 

The coffee business, both of growing and export, is prin- 
cipally in the hands of German colonists, and is a thriving 
industry, more than twenty-five times the extent of any other 
in the country. From the thick forests of the lowlands 
mahogany, pine and oak are extracted and exported, whilst 
Guatemala is also a rubber-producing and exporting country. 
Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom, in the 
order named, do business with the country's imports and 
exports. Minerals are found to some extent, including gold 
and lead ; and coal and water-power both exist for manu- 
facturing purposes. 

In addition to the interoceanic line there is a railway along 
the upper part of the Pacific Coast zone to Champerico — 
another coast port — through the coffee-plantation region 
already mentioned. There are other short lines giving a 
total of about five hundred miles, and a certain amount of 
steam navigation upon the rivers and lakes. Some of the 
lake scenery is very beautiful, whilst the largest of the moun- 
tain lakes, Atitlan, is overlooked by the great volcano of the 
same name, 11,570 feet in elevation above sea-level. 

The traveller to Guatemala need not necessarily be 
obsessed by the fear of seismic disturbance, nor fear to repair 
thither to settle, or invest his capital in business on that 
account. Beautiful fertile valleys, lovely scenery, a pro- 
gressive people and a unique geographical position on the 
Atlantic and Pacific oceans have invited many foreigners 
thither, and will continue to do so. Only five days' sail 
intervenes from New York, and fifteen from Europe, so that 
the republic offers relatively easy access to the tourist and 
the traveller. It cannot be long, also, before the railway 
system of Mexico and Guatemala are linked together, and 
thus will rail communication with New York and the whole 
of the North American continent be established. 

Central America, as has been shown, merges into Mexico 
on the north. Thus we leave it : a region which has not had 
justice done to it yet, due both to the acts of its politicians, 



THE LAND OF THE ISTHMUS 71 

and to certain phases of its topography and climate, which 
have bulked, as defects, larger in the mind of Europe or 
North America than the good points of the land. As to its 
political turbulence it must be remembered that the great 
body of the people have no hand in this, and suffer by reason 
of unscrupulous or ambitious politicians which the peculiar 
social conditions permit to be pitchforked into the front. 
As to the evil reputation for swamps and fevers, whilst it is 
true that such conditions do exist, it must be recollected that 
by far the greater part of these regions consist of high, 
healthy mountains and plateaux, and fertile valleys, where 
Europeans can often find their own accustomed environ- 
ment. With our universalist purpose, kind reader, we must 
hope to give these conditions their due measure of relativity. 



IV 

MEXICO : THE LAND OF ROMANCE 

A LONG white trail winding over a barren plain, broken 
here and there by a stony foothill and some thorny cactus 
at its base : a dusty trail, from which a whiff of adobe dust 
rises from our horses' hoofs with pungent odour; a trail 
leading on over the desert — far away and shimmering in the 
solar heat arising from its floor — towards a distant city with 
white walls and church domes above groves of green trees; 
and still far away beyond that a faint range of blue hills; 
the whole over-arched by the calm azure of a cloudless tropic 
upland sky. Along the dusty trail comes a white-clad feon 
native, with guaraches or sandals on his feet (footgear 
inherited probably from some remote unknown ancestor of 
Egypt or Asia of prehistoric ages past), and he passes 
journeying as he did centuries ago, and as doubtless he will 
journey centuries hence. "Buenos dias, Seiior," he says, 
as he salutes me in passing; and "Buenos dias," I reply 
from the height of my saddle. Anon a vaquero on wiry and 
obedient steed rides past and also greets me; and again a 
sad-faced Indian woman with a baby at her back slung in 
a rehoso or shawl comes along this dusty trail and glances 
timidly up at the white foreigner with a "Buenos dias" as 
we meet and pass. Can you guess, kind reader, what 
country this is? Easily if you have ever been there. It is 
Mexico, that land of strong colour and history, whose 
singular charm is never quite erased from the memory of the 
traveller who has sojourned in it. 

But this peaceful atmosphere of the Mexican upland, the 
Great Plateau or Mesa Central, covers a strenuous past ; 
romantic, bloody ; and any study of it will fill it for us with 
strange pictures of what man has done, stretching out of 

72 



MEXICO : THE LAND OF ROMANCE 73 

the mists of unknown time away from the secrets of his 
origin upon the old new-world ground which we are treading. 
Pictures of the strange empire of the Toltecs and the Aztecs 
will crowd upon us : of Montezuma and his armies and 
priests, of sacred Teocallis and strange pyramids, of lakes 
and causeways and cities set thereby, of savage priestcraft, 
barbaric pomp and despot rule, of untold gold; and then — a 
trumpet call, here are the helmeted men of Spain ! Upon 
us crowd the chapters of the viceroys and the priests, three 
hundred years of rule and misrule; and then revolution rears 
its head. Empire arises and falls — falls when that fateful 
volley resounds from Quereteros' hills to pierce the heart 
of fated Maximiliano. Blue and serene the heavens stretch 
over all ; over tableland and forest, scorching desert and 
fruitful valley, sterile range and snow-capped peak ; over 
carved and ruined temples, wrapped in the mystery of pre- 
historic ages and the secret of their builders' origin — all these 
rise in my mind as I write, and the creaking of my sun- 
warmed saddle and the picturesque and unkempt figure of 
my arriero arise as to its accompaniment. 

But let us turn to our topography. The book of man and 
the book of mountains have their pages intermixed in marked 
degree in Mexico, which, like the Spanish-American 
countries generally, of Cordilleran structure, present, as the 
super-note of Nature's work, anthropogeographical condi- 
tions of intensive character. That is to say. Nature has 
divided the land into great natural zones, as we have already 
seen in Central America, of coast plains, mountains, and 
great plateaux; and as we shall see later on in a still more 
marked degree in the Andine countries of Peru and Ecuador. 

Mexico, of course, is not only — or principally even — a 
Pacific State, although probably the first civilization, from 
Asia, approached her on that side, in distinction to the 
western civilization from Europe which descended upon her 
from the East. She belongs at present more to the Atlantic 
than the Pacific, stretching as she does between both 
oceans. On the western side Mexico has a general coast- 
line on the Pacific of some two thousand miles in length. 
The greatest width across to the Gulf of Mexico, the At- 
lantic waters, is 760 miles and the area, nearly nine times 



74 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the size of Great Britain, is seven hundred and sixty-seven 
thousand miles. The northern boundary of Mexico is formed 
on the Pacific slope by a line running from the coast to the 
Colorado River, forming the boundary with California, 
Arizona and New Mexico, running thence to the Rio Grande 
at El Paso. From that point the boundary is a natural one, 
the Rio Grande, which runs south-eastwardly and falls into 
the Gulf of Mexico, Texas forming the American frontier 
to the north. On the south, Mexico, beyond the Isthmus 
of Tehuantepec, is bounded by those Central American 
States of Guatemala and British Honduras, which we have 
described in the former chapter. 

Topographically, Mexico consists of a great plateau, 
known as the mesa central, or central tableland, also termed 
the plateau of Anahuac, lying at a considerable elevation 
above sea-level ; and the Pacific and Atlantic slopes respect- 
ively. The edges of this great tableland are formed by the 
Mexican Andes, the mountains of the Sierra Madre which 
surround the plateau on almost three sides and which form 
steep escarpments and excessively rugged slopes and terraces 
which descend to the ocean. At their bases are the sandy 
coastal plains of Tertiary formation. The great plateau is 
about eight hundred miles long upon its main axis from 
north-west to south-east, and its greatest width, in the north, 
is about five hundred miles ; tapering — as indeed the whole 
country tapers — to the south, and disappearing in the valley 
of Mexico and the volcanic ranges which surround this. 

The plateau is an inclined plane sloping upwards from its 
wide portion in the north, with a general elevation of about 
four thousand feet above sea-level, to eight thousand feet 
at its southern end; and it is intersected longitudinally by 
lesser ranges of hills which form the crests of what, in earlier 
geological times, were the summits of mountains paralleling 
the general Andine structure; the valleys between which 
have, in the course of time, become filled up by volcanic and 
climatic agencies, thus forming the plateau. 

The mountains of Mexico, the Eastern and Western Sierra 
Madre respectively, are principally of underlying granite 
structure, with the Jurassic, Cretaceous and Tertiary rocks 
occupying large areas. The limestone of the lower Creta- 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 75 

ceous system extends across the country and points to the 
sea-bed origin, of recent epochs, as we observed in Central 
America; whilst the remarkable flat peninsula of Yucatan is 
a Tertiary limestone. The result of the geographical forma- 
tion of the country is a marvellous wealth in minerals — silver, 
gold, copper, coal, etc., and striking and picturesque 
scenery. The Mexican mountains rise, as to their general 
crest line, considerably above the elevation of the high 
plateau ; the passes from the coasts being generally from 
8,500 to 10,000 feet above sea-level : these being the altitude 
at which the railways to the Gulf of Mexico and towards the 
Pacific Ocean respectively traverse the Cordilleras. In 
Mexico only three or four peaks pass the limit of perpetual 
snow, these being Orizaba, fronting on the Gulf of Mexico 
with an elevation of 18,250 feet; Popocateptl, or the "Smok- 
ing Mountain," 17,250 feet, of conical form, and IxtaccinuatI, 
or the "Sleeping Woman," 16,960 feet. These two last are 
quiescent volcanoes, overlooking the valley of Mexico and 
forming the culminating geographical features of the country. 
The Sierra Madres, which mountains have approached each 
other here, are connected by the more recent volcanic range 
of which those two high peaks are the main summits. The 
appearance of these snow-covered peaks is striking and 
beautiful, although their snow-cap is small in comparison 
with the giant Cordilleras of South America. 

Mexico is well served with railways, as far as its eastern 
side and the great plateau are concerned, for two trunk lines 
run southwardly from the United States border to the City 
of Mexico : distances of about one thousand and six hun- 
dred miles respectively. These longitudinal lines are the 
Mexican Central and Mexican National ; whilst the Mexican 
Vera Cruz Railway, the solid-built British line with its 
marvellous scenery, runs transversely and connects the 
capital with Vera Cruz. The Mexican Central runs also to the 
coast at Tampico. But the Pacific slope is much less access- 
ible from the interior, and no railway is, as yet, completed 
thereto, although work is being rapidly pushed on and will 
be finished before long. The total railway mileage of Mexico 
is more than fourteen thousand, a splendid showing for a 
country so recently emerged from political chaos. Mexico, 



76 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

however, possesses an interoceanic railway : the famous 
Tehuantepec line, of which she is justly proud. 

The Tehuantepec Isthmus and railway is developing into 
a trade-route of much importance to the commercial world, 
and without much flourish of trumpets. Moreover it may 
be expected to be a formidable competitor of the projected 
Panama Canal. The railway across the Mexican Isthmus 
is only 192 miles long, and the highest altitude reached — at 
the Chivela Pass, the water-parting of the Continent between 
the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean — is only 730 feet above sea- 
level. The new ports at both ends of the line, which have 
been constructed at heavy outlay by the Government of 
Mexico, give splendid facilities for ocean steamers. The 
passage from the northern part of the Great Pacific Coast, 
the seaports of British Columbia, Puget Sound, and San 
Francisco, to New York and Liverpool will be lessened by 
5,000 miles as compared with the journey via Cape Horn, and 
it is to be recollected that the Tehuantepec Isthmus is nearer 
to the great "Axial Line" of the world's commerce, and 
to the latitudes of the huge, populated regions of North 
America and of Europe than Panama by 1,200 miles. Of 
course transhipment is a necessary part of this route, but it 
is estimated that rates will always be much less thereover 
than by that of the transcontinental railways of North 
America. The shipping of Canadian wheat from Vancouver 
to Europe may possibly be cheapened by this new route; 
whilst some of the Japanese steamship companies are to be 
benefited by the use of this route for American and European 
Atlantic ports, as contrasted with the route via Suez. This 
splendid achievement in isthmus, railway, and harbour build- 
ing is due to the financial enterprise of the Mexican Govern- 
ment and the constructive skill of the British engineers and 
contractors who built it : and it must form an important 
factor in the economic development of the Great Pacific 
Coast. 

The portion of Mexico which lies upon the Pacific is 
formed of the wide coastal plain of the north, and the forest- 
covered mountain spurs which descend to the very line of the 
breakers in the south ; and is embodied in the States of 
Lower California, Sonora, Sinaloa, Tepic, Jalisco, Colima, 




X 

(J 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 77 

Michoacan, Guenero, Oaxaca, and Chiapas, which latter 
borders upon Guatemala. Of good seaports and harbours 
adown this vast stretch there are comparatively few. Yet 
Acapuleo is one of the best ports on the whole of this vast 
line of the great coast which we are considering, ranking 
next to San Francisco in California. Other good ports are 
Guaymas, Mazatlan, San Bias, Manzanillo, and Salina 
Cruz, the last named being the terminus of the Tehuantepec 
railway. Another place of importance is La Paz, on the 
peninsula of lower California. Pearls, gold, timber, fish, 
cocoanuts are some of the products of this coast; and it 
contains, along with handsome cities and cultivated valleys, 
some of the most savage and unexplored territory in the 
republic. Typical of these conditions is the State of Guenero. 

The City of Mexico and its strange and unique blending 
of the old and the new belongs more to the Adantic than to 
the Pacific world at present. The traveller who has trodden 
its quaint streets, encircled its singular and beautiful valley, 
and enjoyed the hospitality of the people of its luxurious 
suburbs, such as Tacubaya, San Angel, and Tlalpam, will 
retain pleasing memories of this Paris of North America. 
The capital is the greatest historical centre upon the whole 
continent; the most marked of all in its traditions and archi- 
tecture. Be he of what race he may, the foreigner will hope 
that the strenuous modernity of the north will not unduly 
influence Mexico, and that this handsome City of the Lakes, 
with its azure sky and pleasing environment will remain a 
characteristic centre, as it is at present, of the civilization 
which Spain implanted : an offset to (and an example in some 
respects to) the progressive Anglo-Saxon peoples of America. 

The exigencies of long travels have enabled me to view 
Mexico and its people and their life intimately, and during 
several years; and I retain lasting impressions of this pro- 
gressive, yet primitive and pastoral land, and of the 
character of its civilization. Framed by my horse's ears 
the landscape has presented itself through many marches 
amid rocky defiles, broad plateaux, and the virgin forests, 
beyond the consuming radius of the locomotive. Most 
typical of Mexico, both as to its scenery and its people, must 
be considered the great plateau. Dusty, treeless and triste 



78 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

it is in places, grand and diversified in others, vast, calm, 
and wild generally, with the poor villages of the -peones 
alternating with the handsome Hispanic-built cities for 
which Mexico is famous. And the mines — ha ! the mines 
of Mexico are a volume to themselves. Saints and silver 
are inextricably interwoven ; the bounty of nature was never 
so lavishly displayed as in these rocky ribs wherein men 
have delved since the time of the Aztecs. The history of 
Mexico is, indeed, largely a history of Metallurgy. Gold 
was the bait of the conquistadores and the alleviation of the 
disease from which they suffered — as Cortes informed Monte- 
zuma, and that fatalist monarch sent supplies of the yellow 
metal in response. Silver was the spur to the endeavours 
of the Spanish colonizers; the lever of civilization as well 
as the cause of much atrocious oppression, at which our 
blood boils even to-day. The singular blending of piety 
and avarice, cruelty and religion, toil and fiesta, which 
marks out the mining of Mexico — as of Peru — from the rest 
of the world will ever impress itself upon the traveller and 
student in this land; and as the failing sunset casts its shafts 
on ruined mine and stone fa9ade both praise and protest 
spring to his mind : marvelling at the ways of men. 

The scenery of the Mexican plateau is perhaps unique in 
character, differing, although almost indefinably, from the 
arid regions north of the Rio Grande, in the United States. 
Mexico, indeed, is a land of transition between North and 
South America in every respect, whether as to scenery, 
climate, people, or flora. Let us draw rein a moment. The 
last rays of the setting sun are tinting the tops of one 
of the numerous secondary ranges which intersect the 
plateau. The deep blue shadows cast upon the slopes bring 
into strong relief the carmine-tinted serrations of the sum- 
mits — tinted by the sunset, and the main shadow of the 
range extends far out, encroachingly, upon the plain, its 
advancing edge cutting the brown wilderness like the shadow 
of a sun-dial — which indeed it is. The temperature falls 
rapidly. The atmosphere, freed from the heat-vibration 
arising from the ground, forms no obstruction to the distant 
panorama, where successive peaks and ranges develop their 
naked and seemingly geometrical forms to the eye. The 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 79 

shadows of the distant ranges cast by their own summits upon 
their flanks bring into sharp relief the mysterious and un- 
travelled caiions which descend their slopes; rising in 
distinct tracery, now that the sun is low, from the broad 
sandy deserts which flow up to their bases. The sandy sea 
extends beyond the termination of the individual chain and 
is lost in the horizon of the earth's curvature. A faint haze 
lingers around the bases of the hills, due to sudden atmo- 
spheric changes brought about by the high elevation above 
sea level, and a sense of repose is engendered in the on- 
looker, not untinged with melancholy and mystery — a far-off 
sensation belonging perchance to the borderland where the 
material and the ethereal meet. 

It is as evening falls that the varying form of the moun- 
tains in arid, tropical countries such as this are revealed to 
the eye. The action of the elements upon them is shown in 
the steep, terminating precipices, scarred by white gullies, 
where intermittent rains are hurtled down, and the slopes 
and terminating talus at their bases, the work of these 
currents, merging by gradual declivities the cones and 
pyramids of the upper members into the semi-cylinders and 
planes of the bases — topographical geometry of much inter- 
est in the study of hill-formation. Yet a feature of the 
formation of the hills of the Mexican me^sa central is the 
abruptness generally of the junction between the hill and the 
plain, bearing out the character of filled-in troughs of Andine 
mountain ranges, leaving isolated tops protruding from 
great alluvial plains. 

As the sun sets a cool breeze passes over the face of the 
land and revives the flagging leaves and flowers of the 
cactus, released until to-morrow from the glare of the 
perennial sun, for the diurnal changes of temperature are 
very abrupt here. The silence of the twilight is scarcely 
broken, except by the occasional howl of the coyote, or the 
rustle of the passage of the tecolote, or desert owl ; whilst 
among the rock and stunted shrubs at the edges of the 
arroyos, the ravines by which the hill waters have carved 
passage to the plains, the breeze whispers sibilantly and 
eriely, and gently stirs the sand around some patch of 
whitened bones lying upon the desert floor : bones of ox 



80 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

or mule betokening where fell some beast of burden. Such 
is the Mexican plateau, in those long stretches of wilderness 
between the cities and their surrounding cultivation : and the 
sunset falls upon it in gorgeous colours. 

I formed camp one evening in a lonely remote caiion of 
the Mexican Sierra Madre, having had a jacal or Mexican 
wattle-hut built for a prolonged stay, for the purpose of 
examining the mineral resources of the neighbourhood. At 
the head of the caiion was a small lake, and the temporary 
dwelling was constructed upon its shore, and into its waters 
I plunged sometimes for a morning bath. At times a flight 
of ducks circled thither from over the mountains, and occa- 
sionally afforded an acceptable addition to my mountain 
larder. My servant", Jose, an old peon, was a veritable 
character, but he served me well, making singular dishes of 
native character and guarding the camp when I was absent 
with my other attendants upon prospecting expeditions. 
One day a fearful norte, or north wind, blew up the caiion, 
with its accompanying cloud of dust characteristic of the 
arid adobe plains of Mexico "mingling the ravaged land- 
scape with the skies ! " — and incidentally with the food and 
into the eyes and nostrils of the wayfarer, to his serious 
inconvenience. So fiercely blew the blast that it carried away 
a canvas tent, which formed the "kitchen," and deposited 
it in the lake, whilst the wattle-hut itself seemed as if it 
would be moved bodily from its situation. Among other 
things the fire blew away, but I shall never forget the figure 
of old Jose almost siting on the last embers to shelter them 
\,/ from the same fate. For hours he sat there, mournfully 
eyeing the wreck of his culinary department, but saving the 
fire, for the Mexican poor do not at all like their fires to go 
out. Indeed, in their own adobe huts they jealously guard 
the embers and bury them in the ashes at night so that they 
spring into flame when fanned in the morning; whilst the 
devout making of the sign of the cross around the fire- 
place would never be omitted by the poor peon or his woman 
before beginning the day's culinary operations. 

The night fell exceedingly cold after the noyte had sub- 
sided, and it was in vain that I endeavoured to get warm in 
my cot. Blanket after blanket I piled upon it but without 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 81 

effect; but at last the reason struck me — the cold was coming 
not from above, but fro7n belo%v ; for the cot was but a canvas 
stretcher, and the mattress I had discarded as superfluous. 
Old Jose was sleeping comfortably enough, rolled in a single 
poncho on the floor, and we re-made my bed, putting as a 
mattress thick layers of newspapers which I had received 
from England by the mail a day or so before. I do not think 
the editor of The Field, the Weekly Times or Spectator ever 
suspected to what uses those valuable periodicals would be 
put in the mountains of Mexico ! Paper is a good prevent- 
ative against cold; and no doubt the Arizona man — whom 
I have mentioned elsewhere — who made his bed, on one 
occasion in the desert, with a copy of the Sunday edition 
(68 pages) of the New York Herald, had more reason than 
might at first blush appear ! 

So I slept warmly after that, but when I arose a slight 
snowfall, a rare thing on the Mexican plateau, had taken 
place in the night, and as I emerged on horseback from the 
mouth of the caiion in the early morning, the forms of four 
grim, gaunt coyotes stood there almost menacingly, rendered 
bold by hunger. But coyotes never attack a man. Unsling- 
ing my Winchester carbine from the holster I took aim, but 
the horse, impatient to be away, would not stand an instant 
to fire, and the coyotes faded away among the desert scrub 
after the manner of their kind. 

The early morning air is an invigorating tonic on moun- 
tain and plateau; a veritable sanatorium is the high region, 
free from any of the malarial disorders of the lowlands of 
the coast. The great caiions which flank this region are 
stupendous; and the mountain trails offer hard, and at times 
dangerous wayfaring. "Take me home another way," I said 
to my ^eon-guide, after the day's work, desiring to see as 
much of the neighbourhood as possible. He did so with a 
vengeance ! Instead of following the line of the river whither 
we had come, we crossed it and began the ascent of the 
rocky bluff' upon the other side; and whilst the guide was a 
reliable fellow, and I had generally little hesitation in follow- 
ing him, on this occasion he was evidently travelling a road 
he had not travelled before. Soon the narrow zig-zag wound 
up the steep at an appalling angle. The horses' breath came 

G 



82 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

fast and short ; their limbs trembled, and their bodies were at 
such an angle that only clutching the mane kept the rider in 
the saddle. In mountainous countries the horseman soon 
learns the value of the short mane clutched in the bridle- 
hand. The way was extremely perilous, and I doubt if a 
horse had ever ascended it before. One false step and we 
should have rolled down hundreds of feet whither we had 
come. "Keep going, seiior, keep going," was the exhorta- 
tion of the guide; which indeed was not necessary, for I 
knew well enough that if my horse stopped once he would 
overbalance, and I plied him unmercifully — yet really merci- 
fully — with spur and whip, and up the narrow deer-track the 
trembling brute reared and scrambled, sending down showers 
of stones. My feet were loose in the stirrups, for it might 
be necessary to alight without a second's delay — notwith- 
standing that the rock wall going sheer downwards left no 
alighting-place. Had that trail extended upwards for another 
fifty feet we could not have reached the summit. As it was 
we reached it, the horses foaming and exhausted, and the 
nervous strain was over. "Senor," the guide replied to my 
censure for having brought me up such a frightful place, 
" I came up here when a boy, on mule-back, but the road 
has fallen away since then." 

During years of journeying in the Cordilleras of the new 
world, within the region of the Great Pacific Coast, the 
traveller will ride perforce into appalling places — nightmare 
tracks where clouds hang below you, and where chasms open 
on every hand. On one occasion, which I have recounted 
elsewhere, a landslide occurred at the moment of passing 
along a precipitous trail, and the mule I rode was carried to 
destruction by it, and I barely escaped to tell the tale. 

Incidents of life and travel in the intimate heart of Mexico 
by the foreigner whose pursuits have called him there are 
picturesque and tinged with the almost mediseval character of 
the country. We are in a continual atmosphere of the 
middle ages; of horseback journeying; priestly rule; and of 
Quixotism and courtesy inherited from Spain of the vice- 
roys — pleasing and singularly in conformity with the land. 
The highwaymen, however, have almost disappeared, fortun- 
ately, and we may journey with a general feeling of security 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 83 

almost anywhere in Mexico now. Yet in tiie lonely desert 
stretches robbery with violence is by no means unknown. I 
rode out one morning early from a town of the plateau to 
journey to another place — a road I had often traversed — 
through a wild range of hills, a distance of some thirty miles 
or more. I was alone, having sent on my attendant the 
previous day upon some matter of the mail. I have always 
enjoyed journeying alone in the wilds. There is to me 
much of allurement in the changing panorama of the desert, 
the rock formations, the singular types of vegetation (where 
nature, armed at all points with thorns against intrusion, 
has created or developed an astonishing range of types of 
cactus and prickly shrubs). The far horizon and the cloud- 
less sky and the general sense of communion with nature, 
moreover, are ever attractive. So when I heard a horse's 
hoofs upon the rock road some way behind I did not feel 
pleased, and gently spurred my horse to a quicker pace with- 
out turning round. But the individual behind, whoever he 
was, seemed desirous of overtaking me ; and as it is well 
in such situations to know the bearing of events, I drew rein 
to observe him as he galloped up. Courteously enough he 
saluted, asking if I objected to his companionship on the 
ride, for he was bound in the same direction as myself. I 
could hardly reply in the negative, so we rode along, myself 
wrapped up in some British reserve purposely that he might 
not expect much conversation — which, however, he supplied. 
1 knew the man by sight. He was a Mexican who owned 
a little gambling den in the town, and operated anywhere 
where ferias or fairs were going on and there were people to 
be fleeced with his faro table; and I did not care for the 
acquaintanceship at all. However, he was respectful 
enough — the British reserve is a useful cloak at times. At 
last we approached some broken ground in the vicinity of an 
arroyo or ravine, and I observed that my companion looked 
around rather fearfully. "Pardon me, sefior," he said, 
"would you mind telling me if you carry a revolver?" I 
replied in the affirmative, lifting the flap of my front saddle- 
holster where the butt of a long-barrelled Colt's revolver was 
disclosed. "Well," he replied, "I only asked as sometimes 
upon this road there are mala gente about." 1 replied that 

G 2 



84 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

I, at least, carried little of value, adding that I thought we 
could give a good account of ourselves against any footpads, 
if such a contingency should arise. 

But the gambler seemed uneasy. I had observed previ- 
ously that he carried in front of him a large, heavy-looking 
bundle wrapped in a poncho ; and, moreover, when his horse 
stumbled, as it did now and then, I heard a faint jingling 
sound, as of coin ! Probably my uninvited companion was 
carrying the spoils of some good gambling run in heavy 
Mexican dollars; for there had been a protracted fair at the 
town. Just as we passed the broken ground his sorry horse 
stumbled again, and something must have got loose in the 
package, for continuous musical jingling came from it — 
unmistakably of silver coin ! The gambler seemed much 
perturbed at this occurrence. "Perhaps he thinks I want to 
relieve him of it," I cogitated, and w-illing both to leave him 
to his own devices and to expedite my own march, which 
was getting rather slow, I said I must gallop on, as his horse 
did not seem to be in very good condition. But I was 
scarcely prepared for what he would reply. "Seiior," he 
said, "I know you are an Englishman, and so incapable [sic] 
of doing wrong to a fellow-traveller " — going on to say that 
the sack in front of him was full of silver, and that he was 
afraid of being attacked on the road, which was why he had 
presumed to ask my companionship, as he was unarmed, 
and believed some men were waiting in the arroyo to rob 
him. I could not refrain from laughing at the situation, 
and promised to give him my company past the debatable 
ground. As soon as the town came in sight a few miles 
away, I bade adieu to Mr. Feeble-mind and Ready-to-halt, 
and put spurs to my horse, and the faint jingling of silver 
coin soon died away behind me. 

If the scenery and incidents of travel in Mexico are pictur- 
esque, the people of the working-class are equally so; singu- 
larly in conformity,, as it were, with their environment. They 
are much closer to nature than the peoples of Anglo-Saxon 
America, for the commercial spirit of the Anglo-American 
seerns to have divorced him from the spirit of the soil and 
the countryside, as I have ventured to reflect in the chapter 
upon California. The Mexican peon, in his struggle to 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 85 

obtain his means of subsistence among the rocks and thorns 
upon the desert of the great plateau, shows a remarkable 
adaptability ; he is full of patience — a remarkable patience 
and care in the making of things and in the going on his 
way such as is not found in the machinery-bred (if I may 
use the term) people of the civilized world of America or 
Britain. As to its religious spirit and homely doings con- 
nected therewith, Mexico is the " Holy Land " of America, 
and this atmosphere is a very strongly-marked character- 
istic of the country. The towns set on these barren hillsides 
in some cases might be the towns of Palestine. Jerusalem 
and Nazareth are duplicated ; the deserts, the palm-trees, the 
vines and fig-trees; the mountains and the blue sky — all seem 
the counterpart of Bible scenes; and the pastoral life and the 
relation between the sexes are those of the patriarchs. The 
feudal system which obtains as regards the land and the 
landowners give rise largely to the environment ; and the 
great stretches of wilderness, inhospitable mountain ranges, 
torrential stream, fertile valley and smiling oasis, cause life 
in Mexico to be removed from the American life of the 
north "as far as the East is from the West." Indeed, the 
singular blending of light and shadow, colour and quaint- 
ness, carries the mind of the traveller constantly to the Bible 
world — anywhere except Aroerica. Let us change the scene 
a moment. I leave my hotel, an old stone building of the 
time of the viceroys, and take my way up the crooked streets 
of — is it Jerusalem ? Here are flat-topped, white-walled 
houses, standing pleasingly with the barred windows and 
balconies at angles consonant with the steep, hill-climbing 
cobble-paved streets, up which white-dressed peasants are 
driving asses. The sun is going down, and its saffron glow 
forms a contrasting background behind the old cathedral 
tower, whilst on the other side the Mexican moon throws a 
pale light on the mellow tinge of its richly-carved fa9ade — 
a poem in stone worth journeying far to see. An old stone 
arch I pass under : more crooked upward streets, and steps 
cut in the protruding stone of the mountain-side. The moon 
ascends, and flat-topped dwellings are sleeping under the 
calm white rays. Soon I emerge upon a dusty cactus- 
bordered road upon the plain of — not Palestine, for this. 



86 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

kind reader, is a description of the town of Zacatecas upon 
the great plateau. 

A striking attribute of the Mexican people, especially the 
peon class and Indians, is their intense religious customs — 
often semi-superstitious. It is a world where saints and 
sentiment rule. Behold the numerous crosses set every- 
where, on bare hill-summits against the sky ; by the trickling 
spring or well which renders life possible in some dusty 
hamlet, or along the desert road to mark the spot where the 
blood of some unavenged Abel cries from the ground — for 
Cain stalks easily through the lands of Spanish-American 
peoples ! Exceedingly pathetic is this deep religious senti- 
ment in everyday life, and the belief in the bounty of Provi- 
dence and the unseen world of these poor people ; w^ho, it 
might be said, have nothing in this world. Whether it is the 
poor Indian woman in the adobe village church, lifting her 
unwashed face to the simpering countenance of the waxen 
doll in gaudy raiment within its glass case, with some 
homely petition ; or the poor miner crossing himself before 
he descends to his dangerous subterranean work, or remov- 
ing his battered hat as he passes the precincts of a temple — 
be it what it may, it is a very real element in their lives. The 
women of Mexico — not only the poor but the rich — have a 
saying among themselves when they see the sun shining 
amid a rainstorm, that "the mother of Jesus is interceding 
for our sins," Thus even the sunshine shower — the smiles 
and tears of nature — has some soft pious imagery. 

Among the Indians in some parts of the country religious 
customs prevail which appear to be a mixture both of Aztec 
and Romish theistic influences. Of this nature are the 
festivities and dancing at the village of Ziritzicuaro, in the 
Pacific State of Michoacan ; which becomes a land of 
pilgrimage for the Indians for the three days of the 
Epiphany. With their distinctive dresses, kilt-like cos- 
tumes, plumes, and strange headgear, the Indians form 
singular, picturesque groups. Sunshine and smiles of 
welcome prevail everywhere, and numbers of upper-class 
seiioritas form an interested audience. The native musi- 
cians, with guitars fashioned from the shells of the arma- 
dillos, make music for the dance, which lasts for two whole 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 87 

days, and an action-song forms a constant interlude, with a 
mournful refrain ending with — 

"Ay Jesiis, 
Solo Jesiis 
Quizo morir en la Cruz." ^ 

Probably the dancing dates from Aztec times; and in some 
of these festivities the performers dance until they are 
exhausted. 

I am halting awhile at some other remote Mexican village, 
far from the civilization of the outer world ; and the village 
priest, who has called upon the stranger within his gates, 
has invited me to accompany him to know the village and 
the church. The little bell is calling; mass is shortly to be 
celebrated. On the hill we meet a red-blanketed peon — he 
is a vaquero — and his inflamed visage shows that, to recover 
from the effects of last night's carousal, he has taken a stiff 
pick-me-up of fiery mescal. "Ah! Don Tomas, what is 
this ? " the padre says reprovingly. (For all men are Don, 
be they blanketed or coated, in the republics of Spanish 
America.) The sodden Tomas strives to wipe his alcohol- 
stained lips with trembling hand on the edge of his poncho- 
blanket, takes off his battered Mexican hat of monstrous 
crown, and utters a thick, "Como ha pasado usted la noche, 
seiior padre ? " — the universal greeting — " How have you 
slept, father?" — continuing half-shamefacedly, "After the 

christening yesterday, padrecito, came a few compadres " 

It is enough ; the word compadre in Mexico, or Peru, or 
Chile covers much. A "compadre," as every Spanish- 
American traveller knows, is a sponsor or god-parent, a 
relation very freely entered into among these people, and 
looked upon as a binding and enduring tie. It is considered 
a great compliment to ask a person to be a "compadre." And 
a foreigner who stays for any length of time in any particular 
spot cannot escape — nor need he desire to — invitations to 
become the god-parent of some to-be-christened Mexican 
baby ; some Jose, Tomas, Lola, Dolores or other. " He is 
my compadre," a Mexican peon will say of another, and 

^ "Alas! Jesus: Jesus alone 

Was willing to die on the Cross." 
The words " Jesus " and " Cruz " rhyme in Spanish, 



88 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

this means eternal friendship and forbearance — even in his 
cups, which is a frequent condition ! Drink is one of the 
greatest curses of these poor people. If European man had 
let them alone as regards alcoholic drinks when he came ; 
left them to their pulque, they would have been better off. 
For pulque, although intoxicating, and responsible for a 
good deal of drunkenness throughout the country, is a rela- 
tively harmless beverage in comparison with the fiery 
alcohols, especially the aguardiente, or cane-rum, which is 
manufactured and sold by the great sugar plantations. It is a 
curse of these tropical lands where the sugar-cane grows that 
the making of rum for consumption by the Indians is often 
a better paying matter than the making of sugar. Also, the 
great sugar planters and landowners are often the law-makers 
of the country, so that legislation upon temperance lines is 
not to be looked for in Mexico or Peru or Chile. The abuse 
of alcohol has degraded the aborigines of the Spanish- 
American world, and plays deadly havoc among the natives 
of these lands. 

I do not know whether the lower class, the Indians and 
mestizos of Spanish-American countries cherish affection for 
their dead in a less degree than more civilized people. 
Probably they do. The cemetery of a Mexican or Peruvian 
\illage — the "Campo Santo," or Sacred Ground, as it is 
termed, is a melancholy place, far removed from the green 
churchyard of rural England. Behold an arid-looking 
enclosure surrounded by an adobe wall ; absolutelv bare of 
vegetation, and far away from the town upon some naked 
hillside or bleak plain- — a triste golgotha which strikes melan- 
choly to the heart. If it is a rich man who is being buried 
there is a great procession of friends, and the funeral cortege 
halts outside the cemetery, whilst prominent friends deliver 
long rhetorical speeches, extolling the virtues of the deceased 
(or inventing them if he had none). On these occasions the 
Spanish-Americans give full rein to their love of simile and 
poetic expression, and, in truth, it is an opportunity for 
verbal indulgence which is often seized upon by local orators. 
I attended the funeral, on one occasion, of a friend, the 
principal merchant of a remote town in the Andes, and what 
struck me as quite remarkable was the large muster of silk 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 89 

top-hats among the mourners. I remarked upon this to a 
friend. "Ah, senor," he replied grandiloquently, "civiliza- 
tion has penetrated here, as you see." Many of those hats 
had been worn perhaps once in their owner's lifetime, and 
possibly would never be worn again ; and their shapes and 
sizes indicated that they were of remote fashion. 

But perchance it is only a poor peon or Cholo that is to 
be interred. Listen ! Adown the wind comes a mournful 
dirge, and winding from far-off among the rocks and over 
the sandy cactus-grown plain appears a long procession of 
poor blanket-clad, dirty, picturesque, semi-Indian men and 
women, carrying their dead on the simplest form of stretcher. 
There are no orations, but the women freely weep and loudly 
wail, and the men are not slow to respond ; and that was 
what we heard afar off. The crowd is numerous, for none 
who had had the slightest acquaintance with the deceased 
would absent himself on the occasion. And there, in addition, 
are the numerous compadres — that singular relationship to 
the Spanish people, often stronger than the ties of blood. 
Into the stony ground of the bare, melancholy *'Campo 
Santo" the dead is put. No "useless coffin" encloses the 
dead, neither in "sheet nor shroud" do they wind him, for 
the poor of Mexico or Peru cannot afford coffins. The body 
is simply rolled up in a sack and buried; covered up from 
the ravages of the birds of prey or the dogs which haunt the 
place when they can get in. A couple of sticks are rudely 
nailed together in the form of a cross and planted there, and 
the funeral of the poor is over. No one ever returns to 
tend the graves; and the rude cross soon falls away and the 
sepulchre is obliterated. 

In Mexico the patronage of the saints and other holy 
personages is freely invoked by the constant use of their 
names which the poor miner or tiller of the soil bestows 
upon his field or mine. Every saint in the calendar is repre- 
sented over and over again in the mining regions, as well 
as the name and attributes of the holy family. Some of 
the designations applied to commonplace things are rather 
startling to the foreigner, and shock his sense of fitness at 
times with their seeming, but not intentional, profanity. It 
is startling to ask the name of a mine and to be told by the 



90 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

red-blanketed owner that it is called "Sangre de Cristo," or 
"Sagrado Corazon." This reminds me of a Californian 
prospector who came one day to my camp — an enterprising 
if irreverent gringo who had been examining and taking up 
some ancient mines. Four of these mines had particularly 
struck his fancy ; abandoned old workings with — as he 
averred — "millions in them"; as soon as they might be set 
in order with modern appliances. They were such mines 
as occur on every hill, it might almost be said, in Mexico 
and Peru, positively waiting to be claimed. Well, the 
Californian took up a group of these mines. Three of them 
were called, "St. Matthew," "St. Mark," and "St. John" 
(San Mateo, San Marco, San Juan) respectively, but the 
fourth had been unnamed, or its nomenclature forgotten. 
Did the enterprising American follow out the natural 
sequence and christen it "St. Luke"? He did not; for the 
mine was perversely registered under the name of "The 
American Cocktail ! " Such an incident, indeed, is typical. 
The present spirit of the American of the United States — - 
promoter, capitalist, prospector, drummer,^ as he hurries 
through Mexico fresh from the atmosphere of Chicago or 
St. Louis, is far removed from a spirit of reverence, and 
before him — 

"Ancient and holy things fade Hke a dream." 

But the Californian was a good fellow and typical of his 
kind. He informed me that he was a "Native Son of the 
Golden West," an assertion which, of so poetic a nature 
coming from such a distinctly practical source, caused me 
at first some surprise, which, perhaps, I showed, as he 
added: "Ever been in Californy?" I replied in the affirm- 
ative, recollecting at the same time that the young men of 
California have an Order or Society of "Native Sons of the 
Golden West," which explained the description regarding 
his nativity. The Californian had approached my camp in 
the early morning — I was camping in the mountains of 
Durango — riding a somewhat "razor-backed" steed, and his 
olforjas or saddle-bags bulged out with mineral samples, 
whilst the handle of a small pick protruded therefrom. 

^ Commercial traveller. 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 91 

"Guess you're an Englishman," had been his greeting as 
he came to a halt in front of my tent, and I admitted the 
soft impeachment. "Well," he added, "down there at the 
hassyender (hacienda), Don Hosey Figgero (Jose Figueroa) 
— confound them plaguey Spanish names, I never can get 
them just right — they told me there was an ' Ingles ' up 
here, and I guessed it would run to a cup of coffee." The 
hint was sufficient; I bid my visitor dismount, and as the 
desayuo, or light breakfast which at an early hour is par- 
taken of in Spanish America consisting of coffee and bread 
and butter was just ready, I invited him within; and we 
discussed the mining prospects of the region ; for, as he 
informed me, he was a prospector taking up ground for 
some capitalist friends of San Francisco. "We're going to 
make things hum around here, and don't you forget it," he 
said. "Them mines is bully" — and here he described the 
group of which I have before made mention, including the 
"Great American Cocktail" sandwiched in between the 
saints. I duly congratulated him upon its possession. "But 
that ain't all," he went on. "I have just got a little thing 
which will turn out one of the finest propositions in the 
country, if I know what I am talking about; one of the best 
lodes of silver-copper you ever heard of " — and he indicated 
with a sweep of his arm a distant caiion which intersected 
the hills within view of the open door of the tent. I listened 
attentively. 

"A copper lode, did you say? " I asked. 

"Ex-actly," he replied. 

"A contact lode, running across the canon, north-west — ■ 
south-east?" I continued. 

"The same," he nodded affirmatively. 

"Old workings run in from the caiion, and old adobe 
furnace by the stream ? " I continued. 

"The very description," he said. "I did not know any 
one else had seen it, though. I am going to corral the 
whole outfit for my syndicate." 

"Are you really?" I said, adding, "Have you denounced 
it?" (The word "denounce" in Spanish-American coun- 
tries in this sense means to claim.) 

The Californian tapped his pocket significantly. "Got the 



92 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

denouncement all made out," he said: "and that's why you 
see me so early. I am just riding down to the mining agents 
to put in the claim." 

"How do you know the ground is free?" I asked. 

He replied, and I seemed to trace a note of anxiety in his 
voice, that it had been free ten days ago, and he did not 
think any one had been "nosing around that caiion since." 

"Well," I said, "I am sorry to cause you any disappoint- 
ment, but I denounced the ground myself five days ago." 

The Californian jumped up with a start, upsetting his cup 
of coffee in doing so, whilst my eye followed his hand to 
see if it took the direction of his hip-pocket — the usual 
repository of the western American's revolver ! but there was 
no movement in that direction whatever. "I guess you ain't 
lyin'," was all he said. 

For reply I reached out towards my leather steamer trunk 
— battered from much mule-borne journeying, and produced 
therefrom an official-looking document, sealed with the seal 
of the Mexican Republic, and laid it open before my per- 
turbed guest. It was my own denouncement. 

The Californian scanned it closely, and although his 
knowledge of Spanish was of the slimmest he knew its pur- 
port, and turned to the description of the location of the 
mine as set forth in the document. "I guess the drinks are 
on me," he said with native philosophy, adding that at least 
he was saved a twenty-mile ride, which was about the distance 
from the town and its corresponding mining agent. I 
reminded him of the adage about the sea and its contents, 
and furthermore gave him some particulars of a region not 
far off where there were some splendid copper "propositions " 
positively going begging. He departed with the intention 
of "heading that way," as he said, and I saw his figure 
presently crossing the sun-beat plain below. 

Mexico is a remarkable country as regards mines. 
Throughout the enormous zone of the mineral-bearing 
regions 1,500 miles or more in length, there are innumerable 
old mines which have been worked by Spaniard and native 
at any time during the last four centuries. The metalliferous 
lodes or veins wherein these old workings are situated are 
legion in number; every hill, it is scarcely an exaggeration 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 93 

to say, is crossed by them, and they contain such possibiUties 
as might make the mouth of the London mining promoter 
or capitaHst water, did he but understand it. But he does 
not. The London financier does not want to take up what 
he calls "prospect-holes"; he prefers to wait until some one 
else has taken them up and done some work on them, and 
then he is ready to pay a large sum for the mine so created. 
Doubtless the London financier knows what he is doing — 
sometimes. Mining, however, has — and justly in many 
cases — become discredited with the British public, who have 
put their hands so deeply in their pockets in the past and 
earned no dividends. In justice, however, to the bounty of 
Mother Earth, it must be stated that these losses have 
resulted, often, not from the lack of mineral in the ground 
but rather from financial machination and errors. 

So far, kind reader, we have journeyed principally among 
the poor of Mexico, considering the "short and simple 
annals " of the peon inhabitants. But it has been my fortune 
in these picturesque countries of Spanish America to sojourn, 
not only in the hut of the peasant, with a saddle for a pillow, 
but equally in the palace of the governor and the home of 
the rich hacendado, or landowner. The hospitality of the 
Mexican people is well exemplified in the towns or haciendas 
more remote from the main routes of travel of the railways. 
The simple or pastoral virtues disappear generally before the 
advent of the iron horse, and the invasion of a country by 
an outside business element generally spells the farewell of 
kind and disinterested hospitality; that welcome which is 
extended to the traveller solely because he is a traveller and 
a stranger within the gates. But there are vast regions in 
Mexico yet where the snorting of the iron horse has never 
been heard; pretty towns where refined people live their 
unruffled lives much as they lived centuries ago. Here we 
shall see sweet, reserved damsels of oval face and raven 
tresses; their greatest dissipation the evening walk in the 
shady plaza, where the naranjos and the platanos — the orange 
trees and the elegant banana plants — lend their grateful 
shade and perfume ; and their main distraction the hearing 
of daily mass in the picturesque church, whose Hispanic- 
colonial fa9ade fronts upon the square. Believe me, good 



94 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

reader, the Mexican damsel — as indeed the Spanish-American 
girl generally — is of womanly and attractive nature. She 
is, as regards sentiment, the antithesis of the girl of the 
United States. The flame of passion, when it is ignited in 
her, burns ardently and inextinguishably ; it has the in- 
tensity of the Spanish united with the tenacity and constancy 
of the Indian. Indeed, love and marriage are the animating 
points of the Mexican girl's life; she knows nothing of 
woman's professions or woman's rights, nor desires any 
knowledge of such, deeming that to love and to be the 
mother of children is the proper aim and object of her exist- 
ence and the purpose of Providence who made her. At 
present the advent of the business woman and the suffragette 
is not evident. There is a strain of fatalism in the Spanish- 
American woman which her vivacity at other times does but 
accentuate, and a tinge of unconscious melancholy. "Es la 
voluntad de Dios " — "It is God's will," she says, resigning 
herself to events; and this is a strong feature equally of the 
lower class, or peon women. One result of this attribute is 
the non-existence among Spanish-American women — or at 
any rate so far — of the condition known as "race-suicide"; 
and the Mexican woman will not limit the number of her 
family. The ardent nature of the Mexican girl, and the easy 
regard of chastity on the part of the men of Mexico are 
responsible for the very large percentage of illegitimate 
births. 

The people of Mexico form the most remarkable blending 
of races to be found in the New World. The various native 
tribes in Aztec times included among those the most bar- 
barous and the most civilized of any American people : the 
bloody and treacherous scalp-hunting Apache and the won- 
derful Mayas and Toltecs with their stone-shaping arts were 
equally children of this strange soil. As to their conquerors, 
the Spaniards brought in their own wide range of European 
and African peoples, which had blended in Iberia; and the 
characteristics of Goth and Moor and Celtic, and of Aztec, 
Zapotec, Mayan and all others are visible to-day in type and 
character among the modern Mexicans. An Arab on his 
fiery steed comes along; the face of a Moor looks out from 
some tienda or shop, and a beautiful maid from Andalusia 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 95 

trips, in high-heeled French shoes, along the pavement. 
That is to say, the Arab, the Moor and the Andalusian were 
the ancestors of these we are regarding. 

Out of a total population of something under nineteen 
million souls, which is now estimated for Mexico, nearly fifty 
per cent, belong to the mixed race, which forms the typical 
Mexican nationality : the Spanish and the native fusion. 
From five to ten per cent, are of pure white race; whilst, 
more or less, forty per cent, are the count for the Indians, 
embodying the numerous tribes and divisions found all over 
the republic. The language of the country is, of course, 
Castellano, the Spanish of Castile, and the form of govern- 
ment is that of a federation of states, with elected deputies 
and senators. The laws of Mexico, like those of Spanish 
America generally, are excellent; but their lack of rigid 
enforcement is the weak point of their civilization. Of 
foreigners in Mexico there is a considerable floating and 
fixed population, Americans and Spaniards predominating, 
followed by British, German and French. Much political 
stability and material and commercial advancement has been 
made in Mexico under the continuous rule of President 
Diaz; and it is to be hoped that some progress in the social 
life of the lower classes will be evolved as time goes on. The 
Mexicans of the upper class aim at being a highly civilized 
people. The frequency with which titles or distinctions such 
as that of " Doctor " is encountered among them — degrees 
whether in science, law, medicine or the Church — show how 
their ideas run towards professions in which theoretical 
rather than practical considerations obtain. Military titles 
also are numerous, although there is a growing tendency 
towards a lessening of the importance of the profession of 
arms, and this is a favourable sign, denoting the passing of 
the old turbulent element which lived by the sword. Business 
in its higher branches is looked upon quite as a "respectable " 
occupation, and the profession of the priest is falling more ^ 
into disfavour. The Mexican gentleman is generally wealthy, 
well (if somewhat superficially) educated, and his mien and 
garb are those of the European. Nevertheless the bull-fight 
and the lottery, those weaknesses of Spanish-American 
civilization, are still favourite forms of distraction. As I 



96 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

once took part in a bull-fight, however, I will not animadvert 
here much on the palpable iniquity of the sport. 

The young Mexican of the upper class is avid of gaiety 
and distraction ; to be alone or to dine alone for him is 
unthinkable, or to be plunged in thought rare. He cannot 
understand the desire of the Englishman to be alone, or 
wrapped in his reserve, and always imagines that the solitary 
Briton must be unhappy. "Come and have a capita and hear 
some music, or fall in love a little with these pretty girls " 
(enamorase) — they will, in friendly banter, advise ; and love, 
indeed, and its attendant matters bulk largely on their horizon. 
" Why ! " one of my companions exhorted me on one occasion 
during my stay in a pretty little remote Spanish-built town 
of Mexico, "there is not a girl in the town who would not 
be ready to flirt with 5^ou "^ — {llevarse con usted) were his 
words ; and, flattered as I might have been, I protested the 
exigencies of a more serious occupation. My friend, how- 
ever — he was one of a number of young officers of the army 
who were quartered there — proceeded to unfold a plan for 
the evening's entertainment. "We are going to make a 
' gayo, ' " he said. "Come and take part in it! " 

I thanked him uncompromisingly, and waited further 
explanation of this particular form of amusement. "We 
collect half-a-dozen boon companions," he said, "hire the 
town band, and fill our pockets with bottles of wine and 
beer. Then, about midnight, we set forth and visit in suc- 
cession the houses of our girl-friends or sweethearts. There, 
outside in the street, the musicians touch their strings, and 
the happy individual whose novia or inamorata lives at that 
particular place stands without her window." 

"And does she appear?" I asked innocently. The young 
men, most of whom were going to the "gayo" and were 
standing round, laughed at my question. "No, alas! " they 
said. "She does not appear. Lying upon her virgin 
couch she listens to the music, whilst her adorer, torn with 
passion, clutches the cruel bars which divide them." 

I thanked them for the offer of this unique entertainment, 
but told them that my part in the affair would be without 
interest for them, as I was without a novia ; to which they 
replied that that need be no obstacle, as they would under- 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 97 

take to provide one for the occasion. I listened with amuse- 
ment whilst they went over the list of Lolitas, Juanitas, 
Dolores, Teresas and others, discussing among themselves 
as to which would be the most appropriate. However, I 
compromised by promising to accompany them merely as 
a spectator, the amount of liquid refreshment to be partaken 
of to be decided solely by the judgment of the contracting 
party. This was a necessary proviso, as they love to press 
capita after capita upon each other, and profess offence if 
their exigencies are not complied with. With the detail of 
the night's diversion, kind reader, I will not weary you ; 
suffice it to say that at the appointed hour we sallied forth, 
mufifled in cloaks and sambreras to celebrate this custom of 
seranata, the leader of the expedition having first obtained 
the permission, as customary, of the municipal governor, or 
jeje palitica. As a matter of fact the jefe, at a late hour, 
joined the expedition (leaving for the time his official dignity), 
and gave, under the stimulus of numerous applications of 
the sherry and cognac flask (terrible mixture), a song and 
dance in front of the house of a young lady whom he was 
supposed to regard with platonic affection. So hilarious did 
the serenaders become, and so industriously did the band 
strum and beat, that a stolid, white-clothed Indian policeman 
approached along the shadow of the trees towards us from his 
lonely vigil at the street corner. But the moon was bright; 
he soon recognized what was going on, and who was present, 
and he returned silently to his post. Very soon after this 
1 slipped away unperceived, whilst the expedition proceeded 
to certain quarters which it would be impossible to mention 
within these chaste chronicles. I gained my own residence 
and was soon asleep; but some time after I was rudely 
aroused by a violent banging on the door of the house, 
followed by an appalling attempt at "Rule Britannia" by the 
band! They were finishing by serenading the Ingles! 

The traveller in Spanish America will not fail to observe 
the structure of the towns of those countries, with their plaza 
or public square, tree-planted, and forming a happy prome- 
nade for young and old of both sexes, who walk regularly 
there and listen to the evening music. There is something 
about the arrangement of these cities, with the central pulse 

H 



98 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

of the plaza, and the streets radiating therefrom, and the 
public buildings and church surrounding it, which is pleas- 
ing and effective. It is a community-arrangement which is 
much more likely to make for civic civilization than the often 
dismal and centreless streets of an English town ; and the 
Spanish-American plaza and its daily music might be 
adopted advantageously in Britain. 

A notable feature of Spanish-American houses, to the 
traveller, is the colouring of the exterior in bright hues — 
ultramarine, pink, yellow, red, etc., the cornices being of one 
colour and the plinth of another, the walls being of one 
general tint with panelling or edges of colour. Whilst the 
effect might be described as gaudy, and would be anyw'here 
else, it does not seem so here, and the simple plastered adobe 
structures gain in picturesqueness thereby, which the over- 
hanging eaves, red-tiled roofs, grille-covered windows and 
balconies add to; and the narrow cobble-paved streets, lead- 
ing down-hill suddenly, carry the eye far away to irrigated 
lands beyond, a stretch of desert, a far-off range of snow- 
capped hills perchance, all surmounted by the clear azure of 
an upland sky. Such are these habitations of the mediaeval 
new world, as I have viewed them in a hundred towns, from 
Mexico to Bolivia and Peru. 

The natural resources of Mexico are rich and varied, not- 
withstanding the considerable part of the country which 
presents itself to the traveller as arid or mountainous. The 
mountains, indeed, have given birth to the wealth in 
minerals, silver, gold, copper, lead, coal, mercury, petro- 
leum, tin, etc., which have rendered the land famous in the 
past and are enriching it in the present; for mining forms 
the industry in Mexico, which yields the greater part of the 
country's revenue. But agriculture is the great natural 
mainstay of this, as of any other country ; the eternal and 
living occupation of the great bulk of its inhabitants. It is 
to be recollected that Mexico is divided naturally into three 
great topographical and climatic zones. These are the tierra 
calicnte, or hot lowlands, with a mean temperature of 77" to 
80° F., going up to 105" F. at times, and extending up to 
some three thousand feet elevation above sea-level ; the tierra 
tempJada, or temperate zone, 62° F. to 72" F., up to about 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 99 

six thousand feet— which includes that agreeable region often 
described as "perpetual spring"; and the tierra fria, or cold 
zone, upwards therefrom. The largest part of the country is 
included in the second category, but the valley and city of 
Mexico, as well as a large part of the plateau and the import- 
ant cities situated thereon are within the tierra fria, and are 
subject to a bracing climate with cold nights. Indeed cold, 
rather than heat, will be experienced in the principal indus- 
trial centres, or rather very sudden diurnal changes of both, 
w'hilst among the mines generally the climate is often bitterly 
cold at night. 

This marked diurnal change was very forcibly brought 
home to me on one occasion during an expedition to examine 
some gold mines in the state of Zacatecas. I had ridden all 
day, fifty miles or more under a burning sun across abso- 
lutely sterile plains and barren hills, and as evening fell my 
guide conducted me into a narrow caiion, where, much to 
our disgust, there w^ere no human habitations save some 
mouldering adobe walls. However, the mules were tethered 
upon a friendly patch of herbage which grew near by, a fire 
was lighted and tea made, and, refreshed thereby, I took stock 
of the surroundings. There were the ancient mine-mouths 
above us on the hillside, with great masses of quartz and 
pyrites strewing the slope and the floor of the caiion, after 
the manner of such places generally. I was thinly clad in a 
white drill riding-suit, and before long the rapid change of 
temperature consequent upon the setting of the sun — the 
elevation was about eight thousand feet above sea-level — was 
felt, and the cold pierced keenly through these habiliments. 
I had only brought one blanket, or poncho, and my arriero, 
or mule-driver guide, and my servant only carried one apiece, 
after the habit of these people in travelling. So cold did it 
become at length that our teeth chattered. "Would not the 
seiior prefer to sleep in the mine ? " asked the arriero, who, 
in addition to his present occupation, was also a miner, with 
a knowledge of the place. It was a good suggestion, for — as 
he had informed me would be the case — the interior of the 
mine was as warm as an oven, and there our couches were 
arranged with some armfuls of dried grass, a short distance 
within the mouth of an adit-level. There, except for an 

H 2 



100 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

occasional bat which flew past me from the grim depths of 
the mine below me, fanning my face with its wings, I slept 
excellentl)' until morning. 

In general terms the climate of Mexico is to be considered 
good. Notwithstanding that the country lies towards the 
equator, south of the United States, the high elevation offsets the 
heat of the torrid zone — except, of course, upon the coast — a 
fact which has long since been discovered by the tourists of 
New York or Chicago, who journey to Mexico in Pullman 
car-loads, to escape the terrible moist midsummer heat of 
their own cities. Indeed, the equable, dry and invigorating 
climate of the Mexican uplands is one of the country's finest 
characteristics; and the region of its coniferous forests on the 
higher mountain slopes form veritable sanatoria. Similarly 
may the American of the north winter in Mexico to avoid 
the Arctic cold of New York ; for four or five days' railway 
journey takes him there. 

As to the rainfall it varies greatly in different parts of 
the country, although it is confined to a rainy season, 
from May to November approximately. From 25 inches 
annually in the capital the fall ascends in certain places, as 
at Monterey, five hundred miles nearer the United States 
border, to 130 inches, whilst on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, 
to the south, it reaches 156 inches; falling, on the northern 
part of the Pacific Coast to nil. Snow falls in the higher 
ranges of mountains at times and very rarely on the plateau, 
but I have experienced such, and the unfortunate feon, with 
his sandalled feet and thin white mania clothing {inanta is a 
native or imported calico), looks, while it lasts, the picture of 
dejection. 

The "cloudbursts" in the mountains of the plateau region 
are at times terrific. Indeed, throughout the arid region of 
Western America generally, such as Arizona, California, 
Texas and Mexico, the sub-tropical rainstorms break over 
the land often with sudden fury, washing away miles of 
railway embankment, leaving festoons of rails and sleepers 
supported on the naked abutments of bridges, and scoring 
out the countryside with deep caiions and arroyos. On the 
Mexican plateau there are great areas known as "bolsones," 
where tine alluvial soil, hundreds of feet deep — the work of 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 101 

the elements through ages of erosions; and the arid plains 
of these tracts are sometimes scarred out for a hundred feet 
in depth by the action of successive cloud-bursts. The gullies 
thus created are like huge canals, and when a storm breaks 
in the mountains a terrific spate of water comes hurtling 
down them, bearing along the trunks of trees, bodies of 
animals, and even men, and other flotsam and jetsam. It 
befell me on one occasion to be journeying along the bottom 
of one of these dry gullies which traversed the desert some 
hundred feet below the surface of the ground, for these 
bottoms afford easy going, often, for the horseman. My 
man had lagged behind to converse with (and doubtless to 
take various copitas with) a compadre whom he had chanced 
to meet, who was going in the opposite direction. I rode 
on, buried in thought — a brown study which nearly cost me 
dear. A dull, distant roaring had fallen on my ears, but I 
had scarcely taken notice of it until it got louder and claimed 
my attention : a singular noise which I could not explain. 
True, it seemed that over the direction of the distant hills 
a black sky hung, but the noise was not like the noise of 
thunder. The horse, moreover, was uneasy, and continually 
pricked up his ears as if perturbed by some sense of impend- 
ing danger, in the eloquent fashion in which the equine 
expresses his frame of mind by ear-movement. The noise 
got louder and nearer. It sounded like a thousand bulls 
tearing over a plain — the sound of a cattle stampede. What 
could it be ? I could not explain, but decided I would 
ascend the side of the arroyo to the plain above. Easier said 
than done ; for looking about to find a means of ascent the 
banks, I saw, were almost vertical and of a friable soil which 
offered no foothold. However, a little farther along a place 
presented itself which it seemed might be possible of ascent, 
and as I stood for a moment thinking of essaying it I heard 
a shout, and observed my man tearing along the edge of the 
barranca or bank above me. "Seiior, una ola, una ola " — 
"a wave, a wave ! " he shouted. A wave ! what on earth did 
he mean ? But his meaning was rendered plain in an 
instant. The arroyo or gully stretched straight in front of me 
for a thousand feet or more to where it curved ; and as I 
looked along it I saw a crest of foam, ten or twelve feet high, 



102 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

sweeping do^vn upon me, and quickly understood what it 
was. There had been a storm in the mountains far away, 
and this spate was the result. 

The herculean efforts I made to get up the side of that 
infernal gully were such as were inspired by the imminent 
danger of disaster. Dismounting with the quickness of 
thought I took the end of the long bridle and essayed to 
clamber up the yielding precipice dragging the horse. Use- 
less : the animal pulled back, and I felt that I must abandon 
him, for the spate was close upon us now, swirling down the 
gully from wall to wall in a foaming flood. Cursing the 
blind obstinacy of the brute but loath to lose him, I 
descended again, and getting behind him thrashed him with 
my riding-whip. He made a leap forward, rolled over, 
regained his feet, and in a cloud of earth and dust scrambled 
up the side of the precipice to the verge where my servant 
stood. The man did not cease his exhortation to me to 
ascend, but exhortations were useless — my life depended 
upon myself. For down had come the turgid stream which 
ran in front of the wave, washing away the earth from 
beneath my feet, whilst the soil brought down by the horse 
had practically blocked up the means of ascent. But I 
accomplished it, or I should not have survived to tell the 
tale. A friendly stump of mes quite and the arm of a thorny 
cactus — it mattered not what — lent insecure hold, and 
scrambling thence I reached the end of the riata, or lasso, 
which my man had lowered, and so regained the surface of 
the plain just as the wave roared past below me. 

The Andine structure of Mexico has given origin to basins 
or depressions in the plateau region, which have no hydro- 
graphic outlet; and of such a nature is the Bolson of Mapimi, 
in which the river Nazas — a considerable stream rising in 
the Western Sierra Madre, has its terminus, falling into the 
lagoon of Parras, where its flood waters become exhausted 
by evaporation. This river is a miniature Nile, as regards its 
great value for irrigation ; and the numerous canals which 
conduct water to the great cotton plantations of the Laguna 
region exhaust the normal flow of its waters. A great 
deal of wealth has been made here, and millionaire cotton- 
planters have grown to being in this region — wealth due to 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 103 

the waters of the Nazas. The regimen of this torrential river 
is pecuHar in the dry season, its bed being absolutely dry ; 
when after a cloudburst such as heralds the rainy season a 
spate of water such as I have described comes down and fills 
the bed from shore to shore, three hundred feet or more, with 
a turbid torrent. I have often been under the necessity of 
fording this stream on horseback, the horse swimming and 
wading, to gain the opposite bank. 

Another example of a hydrographic entity is the valley 
of Mexico and its lakes, which have always been subject to 
floods, even during the Aztec period and the time of Cortes 
and the viceroys, which latter governors endeavoured to 
establish drainage works. Now, however, the valley enjoys 
an outlet for its flood waters — the famous drainage canal and 
tunnel, built by a British firm, rendering the valley and 
capital secure from inundations, and by reason of the subsoil 
drainage making it far healthier. The lakes of the valley of 
Mexico were, in a former geological epoch, probably associ- 
ated with the great lake of Chapala and others, which dis- 
charge into the Santiago River, one of Mexico's main fluvial 
arteries, with a debouchure upon the Pacific Coast near San 
Bias. Northward of this is Colima, whose volcano lighted 
up the darkening landscape as I journeyed towards it, and 
flung its murky smoke-coils against the colours which 
lingered over the west, what time the sun-god of the Aztecs 
sank towards the Great Pacific Coast. 

The various topographical and climatic zones of Mexico 
give rise to a wide range of species in the vegetable world. 
Upon the coast zones, both of the Atlantic and the Pacific, 
we have, as native or cultivated products, of a tropical or 
semi-tropical nature, rubber, tobacco, bananas, chocolate, 
henequen, or sisal hemp, rice, cocoanuts, sugar-cane, 
oranges, and a wide range of native fruits; whilst of timber 
the characteristic species of these regions, including 
mahogany and hard woods, abound; and the enormous 
cypresses or ahuahuetes. Upwards from the lowland zone we 
encounter as cultivated products grapes, maize, coffee, sugar- 
cane, and the important maguey, which also extends into the 
colder regions. This well-known cactus is, in some respects, 
one of the most valued native products, yielding as it does 



104 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the national beverage of pulque, with a variety of uses in 
addition. Ranging upwards from these regions are great 
areas of land given over to cattle-grazing and extensive 
coniferous forests, which latter, whilst they have been waste- 
fully denuded in places, still form one of the marked features 
of the mountain slopes towards the Pacific and the Atlantic. 
Chief among the products of agriculture are maize, cotton 
and sugar-cane, and the maguey ; whilst the hemp of Yucatan 
yields fortunes to its planters : the whole annual value of the 
agricultural productions of the country being in the neigh- 
bourhood of twenty-eight million sterling. Nevertheless 
agriculture is still backward. Crops depend entirely upon 
irrigation— a condition, however, which ensures stability and 
regularity, and numerous important works for water-storage 
are being built or contemplated. Improved methods and a 
better organization of the land and the labour are essential 
to the country's advancement; the condition of the great bulk 
of the agricultural labourers, or peons, being little more than 
that of landless serfs under a "truck" system, and this, 
whilst it has received some benignant attention from the 
Government, calls urgently for betterment. The white-clad, 
humble, long-suffering peons, whom I have constantly em- 
ployed, have good and useful characteristics; they do all 
the work of the land, and have always impressed me with 
their latent capabilities. Class-ridden and priest-ridden, they 
are naturally backward, but no thoughtful observer would 
wish to see them divorced from the land, or turned into 
overalled mechanics, town-bred strikers, or other elements of 
modern commercialism, such as their northern neighbour, 
the United States, brings forth as the main human product 
of her civilization. Is it inevitable that a country, in passing 
from primitive conditions of pastoral life, must traverse the 
unlovely phases which the manufacturing nations of the 
world are at present exhibiting ; or shall it be given, per- 
chance, to the Spanish-American people to evolve along 
other lines ? For Mexico's pastoral simplicity contains much 
of beauty and native refinement, which falls upon the 
traveller's senses like some grateful balsam, after the aggres- 
sive and material-minded communities of Anglo-Saxon North 
America. Do not let us despise, kind reader, the patient 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 105 

peon, as, with hat in hand, he gives us his respectfully- 
courteous, "Buenos dias"; nor despise his saints, his 
crosses, and the temples he raises on every hill. They contain 
more than the thoughtless tourist may imagine, and nature 
has preserved him and his ways for some object of her own — . 
possibly purposing that the blatant civilization of Anglo- 
Saxondom shall not swamp her continents of the New^ World 
in their entirety. 

Most important as regards wealth produced is Mexico's 
mining, as before observed. A metalliferous zone crosses 
her whole territory, a zone more than 1,500 miles long and 
extending in breadth across her wide mountain belt. Here 
are clustered the historic mines which have made Mexico's 
name a by-word in the annals of silver and gold. Well might 
Cortes have written to King Carlos V that, in his judgment, 
everything that Solomon brought for his temple might exist 
here : a letter which was the prelude to the draining of 
Mexico's wealth of silver for needy Spain— that insatiable 
"sieve" through whose meshes the minerals of New Spain 
and of Peru flowed for three hundred years. Now Zacatecas, 
Pachuca, Guanajuato — household names in mining; Sonora, 
Chihuahua, and a host of others, ranging from the northern 
boundary of the country to its southern end, all tell hopeful 
and profitable tale to the miners (including British and 
American shareholders whose funds are invested there). ^ Nor 
are the precious metals alone those which Mexico is giving 
to the world, for, rising from a production in copper of nil 
fifteen years ago, the country now ranks second in the world's 
output; whilst her coal and petroleum industries are also 
coming forward. The growing importance of Mexico's 
mineral industry may be gathered from its annual value of 
fifteen million sterling. The field for the miner and the 
capitalist is an alluring one, as I have elsewhere averred. 
As a manufacturing nation Mexico has made some progress 
of recent years; and her coalfields, water-power, and wealth 
of raw material may, in the hands of the enterprising foreign 
element which is invading and teaching her, give her an 
important place as makers and exporters of things which 
mankind wants. 

The civilization, people, architecture, customs, social con- 



106 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

ditions of Mexico are the very antithesis of those of the land 
beyond the Rio Grande : the Anglo-American world of the 
United States. To cross the international bridge at El 
Paso, or other frontier town, is to transfer ourselves from 
the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, or vice versa. It 
is to leave a pastoral community where the greed of modern 
commercial life is little known, and to enter upon the aggress- 
ive struggle of the wonderful commercial age of the United 
States. The distinctive character of the cities of Mexico is, 
of course, inherited from Spain. Guadalajara, Durango, 
Chihuahua, Puebla; even the lesser towns and villages will 
delight us with their old-world Hispanic character; their 
quaint streets and buildings; their innumerable churches; 
their plazas, colonnades, alamedas, and other features of this 
refined and idealistic people. Remote from routes of travel 
we come upon small towns and villages whose air of 
antiquity and simplicity convey a charm which we shall 
never feel in an American beyond the Rio Grande. Here are 
orange-bowered and sequestered haciendas; old stone-arched 
aqueducts, buildings of solid and antique masonry which, 
defying the centuries, do but take on from the lapse of time 
an added dignity and charm. Here are remote and peaceful 
dwellings where, tired of the whirring of the wheels of 
commerce of the north, we might linger our days away, were 
we not active Britons and imperialists. 

There are other chapters of Mexico — the wonderful chapter 
in stone of her ancient history — which inevitably refer the 
mind to the question of the origin and advent of the 
American peoples. It would be beyond the province of this 
book to enter into these at much detail, and I may refer the 
reader to another work of mine dealing therewith.^ The beau- 
tiful examples of the stone-shaping and pyramid-building 
arts of the Toltecs, the Mayas, the Aztecs and others who 
successively or contemporaneously inhabited the country, 
which exist to-day, arouse the admiration of the traveller. 
The palaces of Yucatan, the halls and monoliths of Mitla; 
the pyramids and teocallis of Teotihuacan — all are of such 
singular and unique interest as may well have attracted the 
attention of archaeologists of renown. There they stand, those 

^ Mexico : Its Ancient and Modern Civilisations^ etc. 





0- < 

- > «; 



MEXICO: THE LAND OF ROMANCE 107 

beautiful, ruined structures; mute witnesses to the skill of 
a people who came from out of the shadow of an unknown 
history : cut off at a blow by the advent of the European. 

Mexico, then, through whose broad territory we have 
taken this flight, is a land of transition. Her geography and 
her geology are connecting elements between two continents ; 
her flora and fauna — the former, due to her varied zones, in- 
cluding species from the polar circle to the equator — are 
of both North and South America ; whilst as to her people 
and her civilization they are the link between the Anglo- 
American and the Spanish-American civilizations, and the 
field upon which a marked fusion of life and ideas may be 
destined to be held. 

Mexico has remained upon my memory as a land and 
people of promise ; among its main impressions are those 
of azure skies, tree-crowned mountains, long shimmering 
expanses of sun-beat desert — deserts of peaceful and satisfy- 
ing sterility where the wind bloweth where it listeth, where 
the mirage comes and goes, and where nature's distinctive 
desert-voice falls on the ear of the traveller who can hear 
it. And I have impressions of a courteous people and the 
sound of military fanfare and the gleam of gold lace, all 
backed by a field of white-calico-clad and red-blanketed, 
melancholy peons; of bright glances from coquettish eyes; 
of oval faces which have looked forth from behind the iron 
grilles of their windows or down coquettishly from balconies 
above ; of gentle hand-pressures and stolen glances. Again 
arises a picture of caparisoned steeds and desert trails, of bull- 
fights, savagery and bloodshed ; of untold wealth in virgin 
rocks; of a perpetual summerland, and of that spirit and 
atmosphere, in brief, which has led me to term Mexico, even 
in the twentieth century, the Land of Romance. 



V 

CALIFORNIA : THE LAND OF GOLD 

As we cross the Sierra Nevada, the great snowy moun- 
tain range of Western North America, and descend its 
western slope, we obtain ghmpses of valleys far below the 
curves and spirals of the railway over which we are speed- 
ing. Seen almost from among the snows and the precipices 
of these high summits, are cultivated vales lying in the 
glamour of distance, with brimming irrigation canals, con- 
ducting life-giving streams of water from mountain torrents 
to the thirsty lands of fruit- and grain-growing ranches. 
The cool water and abundance of vegetation form an exceed- 
ingly restful change to the eyes of the traveller, \yho has been 
choked with the silting alkaline dust and bored with the 
monotony of the sand and sage brush deserts over which 
he has passed in the region of the Great Salt Lake to the 
east — the arid wastes of the Great American Desert — before 
his Pullman-car ascended the forest-clad mountains. The 
water-parting is crossed ; below lies the great central valley, 
and beyond it is the coast range and the Pacific Ocean. It 
is California. Thus I first beheld it : thus it opens its gates 
as we approach it from the east. 

There is something of allurement about this well-known 
and fantastic name ^ and the splendid country which bears 
it. Across these stern mountains and along these deep 
canons the first path-finders from the new nation of the 
United States groped their way to find a highway to the 
sea a hundred years ago, to dispute dominion with the 
British fur-traders. Along that surf-beat ocean coast sailed 
Drake, the abhorred of Spanish viceroys, and other stalwart 
British buccaneers, four centuries ago. Into those river-bars, 

* California is a name taken either from an old Spanish romance, or else 
from the Latin words Calida Fortnax, or "hot furnace" : applied by Cortes. 

108 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 109 

gulches, creeks and valleys poured the horde of gold-seekers 
to win the yellow metal whose fame carried the name of 
California to the ends of the earth. Those were "the days of 
old, the days of gold, the days of '49." Along those sunny 
foothills and sequestered vales the gentle Spanish mission- 
aries built their picturesque adobe and red-tile-roofed mission- 
houses, and planted the vine and the fig-tree, years before 
the enterprising Anglo-Saxon, discovering that irrigating 
water poured upon the desert yielded a fortune, planted his 
orange-groves and vineyards to supply the fruit-markets of 
the world. 

The most striking conditions about California to the 
foreigner, and indeed to the American of trans-Rocky Moun- 
tain nativity, is its beautiful scenery and climate, and the 
strong hold that Spanish nomenclature has retained upon 
the topography of the State. The soft-sounding Spanish 
names are in pleasing contrast with the harsher sounds of 
the places of "the East," as the American terms the older 
settled part of the United States. A people who, as the 
Spaniards, named their rivers and hills and villages after 
the saints and other things of the abstract rather than the 
material world, have rendered a service to the land which 
time will not banish ; and the wonderful vitality and sense 
of individuality of the Spanish race (which had penetrated 
through those boundless Cordilleras and forests of South 
America and Mexico) is stamped upon the land and map 
of California — subtly but indelibly. The busy American 
who lives there to-day, and whose it is, thinks little of this, 
but it has influenced him more than he may often recollect or 
admit. 

There are two main entrance ways into the Golden State, 
as the Californians love to term their country — a not unjustifi- 
able nomenclature having in view its stores of metallic gold, 
its yellow oranges, its remarkable natural fields of poppies, 
and its sunsets. The first of these is the overland route of 
the railways from the East, notably the Great Southern 
Pacific Railroad, which climbs and pierces the Sierra 
Nevadas at a maximum elevation above sea-level of 8,250 
feet. It was a stupendous feat to cross these snowy moun- 
tains with a railway, and the forty miles of snowsheds over 



no THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the summits through which the Hne runs in winter, attest 
the dread and power of avalanches. Over the top of these 
extraordinary structures of solid baulks of timber, the snow- 
slides pass more or less harmlessly ; w^ooden tunnels, how- 
ever, in which the view of the magnificent scenery is largely 
lost. But the front and natural door to California, although, 
perhaps, less travelled than the mountain staircase, is the 
famous Golden Gate, that singular cleft in the coast range 
which gives access and outlet to the inland sea of the 
Bay of California. This bay forms a land-locked harbour 
in which all the navies of the world might swing at anchor, 
and where, indeed, the merchant flags of all nations are to 
be seen. 

The topographical configuration of California may be 
said to obey the general Andine structure of the Great 
Pacific littoral of the Americas, shown throughout Mexico, 
Peru and Chile, as before demonstrated. We have the 
paralleling Cordilleras and their longitudinal valleys and 
rivers, with the general north-north-west to south-south-east 
trend, as in Mexico and Peru ; with the marked topographical 
division of coast zone and mountain zone, and their corre- 
sponding varying conditions of climate, temperature and 
vegetation. The dominating natural features of California 
are : first, the two great mountain ranges — the Coast Range 
and the Sierra Nevada, divided by the great Central Valley. 
These two ranges are joined, in places, after the general 
Andine fashion, by counterforts (known in Peru and Eucador 
as nudos, or "knots"). There is one very notable difference, 
however, between the Cordilleras of North America and the 
Andes of South America — the former are covered with 
forests, whilst the latter are absolutely treeless. The two 
connecting counterforts of California are Mount Shasta, in 
the north, a great snow-clad uplift, and the Tehachapi cross- 
range in the south. North of this Tehachapi barrier the 
country is known as California simply, or Northern Cali- 
fornia ; below it the invariable name of Southern California 
is applied to it : not to be confounded, however, with Lower 
California, which is part of the neighbouring republic of 
Mexico. 
The great Central Valley of California is uniquely drained 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 111 

by two rivers, one, the Sacramento, coming from the north, 
and the other, the San Joaquin, from the south. These two 
great streams have their confluence to the east of San 
Francisco Bay, into which their joint waters empty, debouch- 
ing thence with the ebb and flow of the tide through the 
Golden Gate into the Pacific Ocean. 

The colossal Sierra Nevada bounding California on the 
east is not, however, the divortia aquarum of the North 
American continent. The vast region beyond it, comprised 
between the Sierra Nevadas and the Rocky Mountains, 
including the states of Nevada, Utah, Colorado and Arizona 
■ — once known as the Great American Desert — is drained 
by the Colorado River and its tributaries, which empties into 
the head of the Gulf of California in Mexico, and so belongs 
to the Pacific watershed. 

This great elliptical-shaped fertile valley of California is 
some four hundred miles long and varies from thirty to sixty 
miles wide, the outlet to the streams and rivers draining it 
being that of the bay and the Golden Gate. The coast 
range of California is from two thousand to eight thousand 
feet in elevation, and consists of innumerable ridges, spurs 
and lesser ranges, generally forest-covered, and enclosing 
many smaller valleys ; some forming forest-clad avenues 
extending to the sea; others opening on to the Great Central 
Valley. From the summits of some of these hills fine pano- 
ramas are spread to the view. To the east we behold the 
Great Central Valley, with the San Joaquin and Sacramento 
rivers giving life to its towns and orchards, dotted sparsely 
upon the great fertile tract, with patches of forest and desert. 
Beyond the valley is the great Sierra Nevada; and the beauty 
of the winter snow-fields, whilst less stupendous than those 
of the South American Andes, are of enduring recollection. 

The Sierra Nevada is some five hundred miles in length, 
and its summits rise from ten thousand to fifteen thousand 
feet above sea-level. Profound caiions — the work of bygone 
glacier-ages — from two thousand to five thousand feet deep 
scar the flanks of this great chain. Savage and almost appal- 
ling in its grandeur in places is the wild region of the Sierra; 
yet it gives place to some of the softest and most beautiful 
landscape to be beheld in any part of the Americas. In a 



112 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

day's march Nature spreads us her most varied scenes — from 
park-Hke vale to roaring torrent and glacier-bound peak. 
Here is the famous Yosemite Valley, with those sheer, tower- 
ing caiion walls which mark it out from all other gorges of 
the world : here are the unique spots where giant trees are 
found, such giants as only California produces. Where else 
shall we find trees whose seed sprouted in the time of 
Abraham or the pyramid builders ? Here, near Yosemite, 
stands among its forest brethren the Grizzly Giant, approach- 
ing its maturity, experts say, after three thousand years of 
life; while among the great Sequoias are trees whose age 
is estimated at eight thousand years ! 

Down the western flanks of the Sierra Nevada numerous 
streams and rivers flow from sierra snows, to join the 
Sacramento or San Joaquin rivers. Seen from afar the 
snowy belt of the mountain summits contrasts strongly with 
the purple zone which marks the forest dominion ; and still 
below are the foothills where the miners sought their gold, 
and where the fruit-growers have formed their vineyards and 
orchards, rich with the essence of orange, vine and fig-tree, 
and watered by brimming ditches or canals from the canon 
streams. This mountain region of California, with its snowy 
peaks, great forests of sombre pine, numerous lakes, streams 
and meadows forming natural parks, is of alluring beauty. 
Nature has smiled upon it and made it so diversified and 
grand and yet accessible, especially in comparison with the 
untrodden wilds of the Andes and the Amazon of the South 
American continent, that it should be marked out — as indeed 
it is — for all lovers of Nature in her stupendous moods. I 
have dwelt for months in a leaky hut of boards within these 
wilds, and counted the time well lost. 

Turning our gaze now from the east towards the west we 
have, spread out before us, the foothills of the coast range; 
the narrow sandy strip along the ocean verge, and then the 
Pacific with its distant sea-line. There the sun dips and 
leaves its scarlet after-glow, and the westerly wind strikes 
refreshingly upon us after the heat of the day. At other 
seasons, however, the wind is excessively chilling, and brings 
a dreary bank of sodden mist from the sea, blotting out the 
whole landscape and, if we are not careful, leaving us grop- 




Rock formations in the Yosemite Vali^ev 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 113 

ing benightedly among the slopes and canons of the hills. 
So it befell me once on Mount Tamalpais, for the sea-fog 
rolled up and obscured everything within a radius of a 
hundred feet, rendering the descent impossible. 

The great culminating points of the Californian sierra are 
Mount Shasta in the north and Mount Whitney in the south 
— separated by four hundred miles of rugged chain. Shasta 
is a volcanic cone of imposing aspect, rising to an elevation 
above sea-level of 14,440 feet; and it forms a natural monu- 
ment for the surrounding region for a hundred miles away. 
To the northward the sierra forms crests, which from summit 
to foot are lava-covered, and the old volcano mouths on its 
flanks show the past activity of its subterranean fires. 

Shasta's snow-crowned uplift gives rise to numerous streams 
and rivers born of the melting snows and thawing glaciers, 
perhaps influenced by internal heat. Here the romantic 
Sacramento River rises, flowing down the Great Central 
Valley for 250 miles to its confluence with the San Joaquin. 
The snow-cap on Shasta looms w-eirdly and beautifully up 
under certain conditions of the atmosphere, seeming to float 
upon some mystic haze of vapour, after the manner of 
the snow-capped peaks of Cordillera-regions generally. The 
largest of Shasta's five glaciers is three miles long, and it 
descends to within an elevation of 9,500 feet above sea-level, 
the lowest in the whole of the sierra ; for the average eleva- 
tion of the lower edge of the Californian glaciers is about 
eleven thousand feet. Much of the beauty of Shasta is due 
to its isolation, and indeed others of these ice-capped peaks 
of the Sierra Nevada of California and Oregon stand similarly 
alone, rising from dark belts of pine and firs, which afford 
added contrast of light and shade. Also, these snowy 
mountains of the Americas — whether of California or of Peru 
— have an added element of beauty in that their gleaming 
crests are reared into a sky generally blue and cloudless, and, 
in that respect, have some superiority to the Alpine attractions 
of Europe. The snows of Shasta, however, diminish greatly 
in summer, due to the heat of the sun. 

Mount Whitney, the peak of greatest altitude of the Cali- 
fornia sierras and their culminating point at the south, 
reaches an elevation above sea-level of 14,522 feet, with a 



114 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

helmet-shaped crest forming one of the highest points in the 
United States. Other lofty peaks arise in the group of which 
Mount Whitney is the monarch, such as Mount Gardner, 
Mount King, Mount Tyndall, Mount Brewer, Mount Jordan 
and the Kaweah peak, most of which are over fourteen thou- 
sand feet high. Between the Shasta and Whitney peaks 
there are ten or more handsome culminating points along 
the crest of the Sierra Nevada, more than thirteen or fourteen 
thousand feet in elevation. Among them is Mount Ritter, 
13,300 feet, an almost inaccessible mountain surrounded by 
steep glaciers and profound caiions. The whole series forms 
a striking work of mountain sculpture, and may well be 
termed the Californian Alps. 

California, especially in the northern part, has in past 
geological epochs, been greatly altered by volcanic agencies. 
Mount Shasta must have been formed by successive erup- 
tions, alternating with long periods of quiescence, during 
which the flow of hot lavas ceased and the work of the glaciers 
succeeded them in the shaping of the sierras. How long 
it may be before fresh devastating fires are poured forth it 
is impossible to say ; but doubtless it must occur ! The snow 
and ice age in the sierras markedly performed the work for 
California of disintegrating the mountains and filling up the 
valleys with fertile soil, the source of her greatest wealth to- 
day. The traces of glacier action are very marked as far 
south as the 36th parallel, but there are no glaciers in that 
latitude now, and Mount Whitney is practically without 
perpetual snow. Mount Tyndall, however, which is in the 
latitude of San Francisco, is glacier-bound, whilst between 
36° and 40" numerous glaciers exist. It is contended, how- 
ever, that they are diminishing. 

The snow-fall in the sierras, over a belt of thirty miles 
wide, is excessively severe in winter, as evidenced by the 
ponderous snow-sheds on the railways, and averages ten to 
fifteen feet deep. The Union Pacific Line has forty miles of 
these sheds, whilst that striking monster, the rotary snow- 
plough, locomotive-driven, is in constant requisition in what 
is an everlasting fight between man and Nature to keep open 
a way over these inclement passes. In summer these costly 
wooden structures are menaced by fire, whether from sparks 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 115 

from the locomotive, or whether from forest fires or accidental 
or intentional conflagrations from the camp-fires of railway 
tramps. "What are you stopping here for?" I asked the 
conductor of the Pullman-car, as the train pulled up at one 
of the openings in the snow-sheds. He replied that they 
were taking a tramp on board; for there is a standing order 
to give these gentry free passage through the sheds ! 

Whilst tramps are taken on board here as a measure of 
safety, they are more generally put off the train elsewhere ; 
for it is the commonest occurrence for impecunious passengers 
to attempt to beat their way without a ticket. Along comes 
the conductor — a somewhat autocratic individual on an 
American train— down the car to examine the tickets. This 
is not as simple a matter as might be supposed, for if you 
have come from New York your ticket may be about a yard 
long, pieces of it being taken off as various divisions of 
the journey are passed. But, in addition to that, tickets 
are issued not only by railway officials but by "brokers" 
in all American cities, agents who sell unused tickets at a 
considerable reduction, and these may or may not pass 
muster. Often they do not, or are barefacedly useless, and 
the impecunious passenger has no funds to make good with. 
The conductor looks black; there is a short wordy altercation ; 
the official's hand goes up to the signal-cord running along 
the aisle of the carriage, and there is a short answering 
toot of the locomotive's syren. Then the train comes to a 
standstill — no matter if it be in the midst of an appalling 
sand-and-sage-brush desert a day's journey from anywhere; 
the unfortunate "deadhead" is assisted off the platform — ■ 
or "fired" off (that is, thrown off, in Western parlance)— 
and left there, a disconsolate figure on the track across the 
wilderness. I recollect the first time I witnessed this per- 
formance it worked upon my feelings, and as the train was 
starting I bargained with the conductor for the amount of 
the required fare, paid it, and the unfortunate but probably 
culpable passenger continued his journey. This "tender- 
foot " proceeding of mine aroused much interest and com- 
ment among the passengers in the car, both for and against 
the Britisher who had performed it; and it must be admitted 
that, carried into general practice, it would be somewhat 

I 2 



116 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

severe on the pocket ! There is yet another unconventional 
method of journeying over these transcontinental railways, 
especially by those enterprising tramps who love to winter in 
California instead of New York. This consists of getting 
underneath the train and hanging on by the chains or 
coupling bars, holding on in this way for hundreds of miles. 
I have seen tramps emerge from beneath the train at some 
wayside desert station so covered with dust that they were 
scarcely recognizable as human beings; and in some cases 
they fall off from exhaustion en route and are destroyed by 
the wheels. Such is the strenuous life ! 

But returning to the snowy sierras. The traveller who 
sojourns among the mountain peaks of the American Cor- 
dilleras, whether in California or Peru, will observe a curious 
phenomenon at times. This is the occurrence of "snow- 
banners." The snow, pulverized into a dry dust by the wind 
and frost, is blown off the high slopes and peaks in streamers 
or banners, flying out into the air, or upwards, in a singular 
and beautiful fashion, like a streaming white veil floating 
upon the wind, flung against an azure sky, and seemingly 
attached to the summit of the peak, like the chiffon "suivez- 
moi " of a lady's dress. At times dense and opaque at the 
point of attachment, it trails gradually off to a pennant-point 
of translucent texture, reaching in some cases from peak to 
peak across wide intervening spaces. 

The passes over the Californian Sierra, whilst they do not 
reach the great height of those of the Cordilleras of South 
America, are nevertheless of great altitude and often of diffi- 
cult passage ; and, indeed, the Californian Pacific slope is 
cut off from the rest of America by this great range of the 
Snowy Sierra. Many of these passes are mere trails, scarcely 
practicable for mules, at elevations above sea-level of nine 
thousand feet to twelve thousand feet. Others are crossed by 
excellent wagon roads, however. Some of these trails were 
first made during the time of the excitement attending the 
discovery of gold — made by men who, to win the coveted 
yellow metal, would have made trails into the Bottomless 
Pit, could they have obtained gold by so doing ! Towards 
these snowy ranges and their peaks and passes in those 
exciting times the way-worn emigrants with their battered 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 117 

wagons directed their weary steps as they crossed the burn- 
ing plains of the deserts to the east. The ramparts of the 
land of gold loomed up before their eyes, and footsore with 
their thousand-mile journeying, and aged with constant vigi- 
lance of Indian peril, thirst and hunger, they hailed with 
delight what seemed to them the gates of a promised land. 
It was towards the northern part of the sierra, however — the 
Oregon trail — that these pioneers directed their way, in order 
to cross the range by the lower passes encountered there, 
practicable for vehicles. The Mono Pass, 10,760 feet eleva- 
tion, is occasionally used by adventurous tourists, but prin- 
cipally by the Pah Ute Indians, who cross it to obtain 
supplies of acorns from the forests, or to hunt the deer. 

The romance of crossing the plains remained long in the 
traditions of California. The man who "came over the plains 
in '49 " has only recently disappeared, and his following 
generation still retains recollection of that strenuous genesis 
and exodus of his progenitors. Most travellers in Western 
America to-day have heard the yarns of ancient "fossickers," 
old prospectors and others; old "forty-niners," who, in hotel 
parlours and elsewhere, have loved to fight their battles over 
again. There is the story of a strenuous and tragic journey 
which we have heard in Western America — humorous 
but terrible. A cavalcade of wagons and settlers was 
making its way westward towards the Rocky Mountains in 
early days, and some ardent spirit among the rugged crew 
of pioneers had inscribed on the white cover of his wagon, 
with the singular humour characteristic of the time and the 
people, the words, in large letters — 

"PIKES PEAK OR BUST!" 

Pike's Peak is a famous point of the Rocky Mountains, and 
"bust," it is hardly necessary to explain, is a strenuous 
rendering of "burst"; and the whole axiom was intended to 
breathe unconquerable determination. Well, the caravan 
went forth into the great plains; forth into those great 
deserts, where the abominable Apaches and other Indians 
roamed, upon its way to the Golden West. It set forth, 
but not a soul of that caravan was ever seen alive again ! 
The only evidence of its fate given to the party which set 



118 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

out in search of it was the wreck of the wagons and burnt 
goods, and other signs — terrible evidences well known to 
frontiersmen — showing that the caravan had been over- 
whelmed by Indians and the people scalped, tortured and 
killed. Among the wreckage was seen, still intact, the 
wagon with its white cover, upon which the legend before- 
mentioned was inscribed ; but in addition there now appeared 
other words — 

'•PIKES PEAK OR BUST 
BUSTED BY GOD 

The last words bore evidence of having been written in 
haste. I will not vouch for the truth of this story exactly, 
but it is illustrative of actual occurrence. 

As to the perils and discomforts of the journeys of those 
old pioneers during the time of the "Great Migration" and 
the "Oregon fever," we can at least form some idea from the 
appearance of the sand-and-sage-brush wilderness, which, 
day after day, the railway traverses to reach California. 
Notwithstanding the double windows of the car, and the 
closed ventilators, as we cross the alkali deserts around the 
Great Salt Lake the fine white dust silts into the carriage and 
covers everything with an impalpable flour — clothes, seats 
and baggage ; whilst the heat is almost overpowering. The 
awful stony desert, the gaunt cactuses, stretching out their 
ghostly arms, and the shadowy forms of the coyotes seen 
from the windows of the train as it jogs along, remain 
imprinted upon the traveller's mind long afterwards. What, 
then, were the experiences of the pioneers who followed this 
portion of the old trails when they went "over the plains in 
'49"! 

As before stated, the main feature of Californian topo- 
graphy is the great central basin known as the San Joaquin 
Valley. The two rivers which drain it, the Sacramento and 
San Joaquin, are fed by a large number of rivers and streams 
which descend from the Sierra. These tributaries begin to 
rise in the spring and are flooded by the melting snows. In 
the northern part of the country the rapid rise of the water is 
not so prevalent as in the southern part, due to the fact that 
the thawing snow and glaciers discharge their water upon 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 119 

the folds of the porous lava sheets, which retain it and yield 
it up, to some extent, as a more regulated flow. Especially 
is this the case in the region around Shasta, the water being 
vomited forth from deep tunnels in the lava folds; and a 
huge spring of this character, more than seventy yards wide, 
forms the source of the McCloud River. Indeed, various 
rivers in California are, so to speak, born full-sized into the 
world in this way. The forests also, by reason of their 
shade and the retaining power of the snow, serve somewhat 
as natural regulators. Nevertheless, the storms and floods 
in these wild regions are at times terrific. I have braved 
them in solitary expeditions upon the high sierras and felt 
their force. 

These rivers and lava sheets of California, bygone and 
present, are of much interest. The "dead" rivers of Cali- 
fornia have become famous in the annals of the metallurgy 
of gold ; and these Tertiary streams were but a former genera- 
tion of the great streams existing to-day. Yet the ancient 
channels, with their rich gold-bearing gravel, have not as 
a rule any relation in form or direction to the modern streams. 
They consist mainly of interrupted stretches of old river-bed, 
containing great bodies of the auriferous gravel, generally 
buried beneath deep folds of lava. The entire configuration 
of these river-basins has been changed, and the gravel- 
channels occur and crop out in places unthought of : beneath 
high ridges or obliquely across the existing slopes, sometimes 
at right angles to the present drainage slope. These rich 
gold-bearing gravels have been known as the "Blue Lead," 
and they have formed the seats of strenuous gold-getting 
industries, by tunnelling, drifting and hydraulicing. Indeed, 
the well-known industry of "hydraulic" mining was evolved 
in California to open these treasure-chambers. "Hydraulic " 
mining, it may be explained for the benefit of the uninitiated, 
consists of the directing of a great stream or jet of water, 
which is brought under pressure in steel pipes from some 
high source, against the base of the great gravel banks. The 
gravel falls and is washed into long sluice-boxes, where the 
gold is deposited by gravitation, the whole system forming 
a simple and effective means of dealing with vast quantities 
of material. Gold gravels ©f this nature range in the value 



120 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

of their gold contents from an average of a few cents up to 
several dollars per cubic yard of material. The cost of obtain- 
ing the gold by the hydraulic method does not exceed a few 
cents per yard^in some instances only ten cents or less, so 
it is easily seen that great profit is obtainable under proper 
conditions from such deposits. Indeed, so active and 
extensive did these operations of washing down great banks 
of earth and gravel become in California and Oregon, that 
the regimen of the streams was seriously interfered with. 
Rivers became silted up; the channels raised by the debris 
and their waters overflowing on to the valuable agricultural 
land in the valleys to such an extent that bitter opposition 
to hydraulic mining arose on the part of the farming com- 
munity. The result was that laws were passed by the State 
Legislature of California prohibiting this form of mining. 
Not only were farming interests injured but the navigable 
rivers suffered. The bed of the Sacramento became per- 
manently raised much above its normal level, and, indeed, 
the w-ater was only contained in the channel at all by long, 
costly levees, or artificial banks. The legislation against 
the miners formed the theme for years of the most bitter 
discussion, and at that time the subject overshadowed every 
other political issue — for it became such. In some of the 
wild regions hydraulic mining — so great were the rewards it 
offered — was surreptitiously carried on, and special officers 
of the law were appointed to spy out such operations ; and a 
system of vigilance and defiance was brought about which 
was often settled with "shot-gun arguments." A State Com- 
mission was then appointed to inquire into the whole ques- 
tion, for it was beginning to be made evident to the people 
of California that the future wealth of their state lay in 
agriculture rather than in gold-mining, a prognostication 
which has been amply verified. However, the law was 
relaxed to the extent of permitting of working hydraulically 
upon a certain scale, and with the proviso that dams, pro- 
visionally or cheaply built of boulders and brushwood, should 
be constructed in the ravines, with the purpose of intercept- 
ing the silt and debris discharged from the sluice-boxes. 

These singular deposits of gold-gravel existed and exist 
over a very considerable range of country all along the foot- 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 121 

hills of the Sierra Nevada, facing upon the great central 
valley. These deposits, however, did not form the source of 
the gold which gave rise to the excitement following on the 
discovery of gold in 1849. The early comers simply washed 
out the gravel and sand of the existing river-bars by the 
aid of sluices, "long toms," rockers, pans, and all the other 
apparatus which forms so memorable a part of Californian 
mining lore. The original discovery of gold on the Pacific 
slope was made at the famous spot called Sutter's Mill, the 
specks and nuggets of free gold having been accidentally 
observed in the mill-race. After a period the know^ledge of 
the discovery spread, bringing in its train a stream of adven- 
turers from all parts of the world, and the streams and canons 
of Southern Oregon and California — almost unknown until 
then — became alive with miners armed with pick and shovel, 
and the rocks and caiions echoed with the noise of their 
fevered operations and with the creaking of primitive current- 
actuated wheels, which raised water for the sluices. These 
hardy adventurers, animated by the lust of gold, swarmed up 
every creek and ridge, establishing their primitive cabins in 
every ravine, and bent their backs to their toil with one domi- 
nant hope — to win a fortune from Mother Earth in the 
briefest possible space and to return and squander it in the 
joys of civilization. I have visited many of the famous spots 
where these pioneers toiled. They are abandoned generally; 
the streams flow on as they did before ; the old cabins have 
fallen to decay and the hastily-timbered drifts, run into moun- 
tain sides, to ruin. Nature reclaims her own again, and the 
lone cabins and the old mining villages, inhabited by some 
few remaining miners who have pinned their faith to the 
rocks and rivers, or who are too old or poor to leave them, 
wear an air of almost pathetic lament ; as if it were whispered 
that "the place thereof shall know them no more." 

Stories and descriptions of California in those early days 
would fill a volume, and have, indeed, formed the theme of 
volumes. It was a motley assortment of characters and races 
which formed the early Californian population. Gambling, 
drunkenness, blasphemy and murder were strong crederitials 
for citizenship of that cosmopolitan republic of gold-getters. 
How many an unpunished crime was committed there God 



122 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

only knows. Yet it was a race of hardy workers in the maih, 
and there were many good among the bad, who helped to 
leaven them ; and the old Californian pioneer was not devoid 
of characteristics which command approbation, and laid the 
foundations of an industrious community. 

I wandered one day up a lonely canon and sat down on the 
"dump" of what looked like an abandoned mine, whose 
gaping tunnel pierced the hill-side. The air was soft and 
spring-like, and the sun shone down upon the wild ravine 
and the beautiful Californian woods above it, whilst the 
sparkling waters of the "creek," as the American woodsman 
terms a stream, rippled joyously down over a bed of quartz 
boulders and among patches of the gorgeous Californian 
poppies. There seemed to be no sound, yet as I listened 
I heard the faint, constantly repeated thud of a pickaxe 
underground. There was some one in the mine, and after a 
space an ancient miner came forth, wheeling a dilapidated 
barrow and blinking at the daylight as he emerged into the 
sun's rays from his subterranean darkness. There is ever a 
bond of sympathy between the engineer and the miner, and 
we soon got into conversation. The old fellow told me how he 
had worked that tunnel single-handed, on and off, year after 
year, for a good part of his life ; how the tunnel or adit was 
destined "to cut the lode," and how he calculated that less than 
fifty feet divided him from the coveted ore-body upon which he 
had founded his faith from its favourable surface outcrop on 
the summit of the hill hundreds of feet above. "Would I 
give him an opinion as to how much he really lacked to 
encounter the lode ? " he asked, as we conversed. He had 
no "book-learning," he averred, but he had spent, time after 
time, his last fifty-cent piece to purchase a stick of dynamite, 
going without food sometimes to get it from the store when 
his credit had been exhausted, so as to advance yet another 
yard or so into the hill. Of course I would, although I pro- 
tested no knowledge of the local conditions. However, I 
examined the outcrop, and noted the apparent angle of the 
lode and approximate height of the hill. My rough calcula- 
tion might have destroyed the old man's hope at a blow; for 
it showed that, instead of fifty feet of rocky wall there 
remained something like five hundred feet for him to tunnel 



CALIFORNIA : THE LAND OF GOLD 123 

between him and his coveted lode ! But I could not bring 
myself to tell him this. He had made the common error in 
such cases of not allowing sufficient for the dip of the lode, 
which was not vertical but sloped away from his tunnel. 
Besides, I might have been mistaken myself, and lower 
down, even, the lode might have turned again with some 
"fault "; or he viight even have cut yet another lode : or any 
other uncertainty of mining. No, I would not discourage 
him, but returned an evasive answer. Almost tremblingly 
the old fellow brought forth from a dilapidated board shanty 
in the ravine, where he had lived for years he said, some 
pieces of quartz. I examined them ; and there were the char- 
acteristic flakes of yellow gold embedded in them. "Did I 
not think it was rich ? " and " Did not a fortune await him if 
he could but cut the lode ? " To both of these questions I 
could honestly reply in the affirmative. Perhaps the old 
fellow is toiling on to this day, with the gleams of gold ever 
in his mind, hoping to "cut the lode." Perhaps the old 
shanty is empty, the thud of the pickaxe no longer heard 
in that musty tunnel, and perhaps the old toil-wizened face 
and grey hair and bent back have departed to some more 
ethereal, more golden, shore ! I was glad I had not dis- 
couraged him, for I found afterwards that he was being 
"grub-staked" by a man in the village who shared his faith 
in the mountain ; and he might have lost his occupation on 
an adverse rumour. The old miner is typical of many things, 
we may permit ourselves to reflect, kind reader. 

During my camping period in the same region I set out 
one afternoon to visit one of the big hydraulic mining districts 
in that part of California — somewhat to the north-west of 
the Union Pacific Railway — a district where active work had 
been stopped by reason of the injunctions against these 
operations, as before described. 

It fell to my lot to miss the road, and before I regained it 
night fell and a pelting storm came on — snow, hail, rain, 
wind and every other element being seemingly let loose in 
the sierra. However, moonlight alternated with flashes of 
vivid lightning, and I was enabled to follow the road; and 
weary and absolutely soaked to the skin I arrived, in the still 
dark early hours of the morning, at the mining village. The 



124 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

suspension of mining work had caused the place to become 
almost entirely abandoned, and the fitful moonlight shone on 
a row of ruined board shanties, many of them doorless and 
windowless, alternating with groups of dark pine forest and 
evil-appearing water-holes. Away from the road stretched 
great yawning chasms where the gold-gravel had been washed 
away in the hydraulicing operations ; the pitiless rain alter- 
nately cleared and pelted down, and upon the horizon the 
rugged and broken forest-clad hills loomed up menacingly. 
The whole scene was weird and forbidding, and, with the 
abandoned habitations and the eerie feeling of the night, 
without human soul around, gave the place an aspect such 
as might have appealed to the imagination of a Dante. But 
I had yet to experience a further part of its weirdness and 
uncanniness. I knocked at door after door of the dark, 
forbidding shanties, hoping to find some inn or habitation 
where I might secure at least shelter from the storm. Raising 
my eyes above the door of one of these, which seemed to 
bear a signboard of some description, I struck a match to 
read it. It was an inscription in Chinese ! Passing on 
hastily — for there is something about a Chinese habitation 
which ever inspires repugnance — I approached another 
shanty. A similar inscription met my eyes; and so on with 
at least half-a-dozen more. I felt like one in a dream ! In 
one of the shanties I thought I heard voices, and moreover 
the pungent odour of "punk," or incense, such as these 
people burn, and whose odour, once smelt, is unforgettable, 
hung about the place. "This must be some joss-house," I 
murmured to myself, for I knew something of Chinese 
methods from my visits to the Chinese quarters of San 
Francisco. However, I resolved to knock, as the storm had 
come on with relentless fierceness. So I vigorously ham- 
mered at the door with my stick. No response. Again I 
hammered still more loudly, and a moment afterwards a 
window opened above and the head of a Chinaman was 
thrust forth, his repulsive face lighted up by the glimmer of 
some candle or lamp inside. A torrent of gibberish flowed 
from his mouth, of Chinese with a few broken words of 
English, of which I could make nothing. However, I 
shouted out my desire for shelter till the storm passed, and 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 125 

the head was withdrawn and the owner, a Chinaman, in his 
singular native dress, came down and opened the door. But 
my hopes of shelter were rudely dashed to the ground. After 
treating me to another torrent of gibberish the repulsive- 
looking celestial — more like a baboon than a man — banged 
the door in my face, and I heard the bolts shot on the inside 
again. 

Prospects of shelter — to say nothing of bed and board — 
seemed remote. I have had various experiences with China- 
men on the Pacific coast, whether in California, or Mexico 
or Peru; and I cannot say that my recollections of them are 
pleasant. As a race Chinamen are detested in California, 
although it would not be fair to lay the onus of this entirely 
upon the Chinaman. I walked on, barely escaping falling 
into a pool of filthy water outside that celestial dwelling. 
But fortune was with me now. I knocked at another door, 
and it proved to be that of the "hotel" of the place, which 
was "run" by a "white man." Never did the sound of an 
Anglo-Saxon voice fall more pleasantly upon my ears. The 
owner was up — it was now early morning — and even his 
uncivil tones — for the native American is either natively or 
purposely uncivil as a rule — were welcome after the Chinese 
gibberish. There was a fire burning in the "saloon " or bar- 
room, and I changed my clothes and put on some I borrowed 
from him whilst my own dried. 

The incivility of the Western American does not neces- 
sarily arise from native disagreeableness. It is a sort of 
defensive measure; he wants to impress upon you that he is 
as good as you are, and adopts this way of doing it ; and 
perhaps he thought that this early and unexpected guest, 
in the form of a young Englishman of refined speech and 
appearance must necessarily be about to show him some 
superiority. However, we soon understood each other, with- 
out much ceremony, and when he found that I was not a 
State official spying on illicit hydraulic operations, his 
"You are a Britisher, I guess?" and my affirmative became 
a passport and not a ban ; and he undertook to show me round 
the place. 

The rivers of California, descending from the sierra, rise 
very rapidly after the rain-storms in the mountains, and it is 



126 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

often impossible to cross them, although one may have 
forded them a few hours previously. So it befell me on one 
occasion, during my camping in the mountain hut before 
mentioned. I had ridden into the village across the river 
some miles away to order provisions, for the larder was 
exhausted; and I tied up my horse outside the "store" to 
make my purchases. Unfortunately a passing buckboard — 
as the light, two-wheeled Western vehicle is termed — drawn 
by a restive horse, frightened the horse, who, breaking his 
halter, set out at a gallop for home. This was troublesome, 
to say the least. It was ungrateful, too, as the animal 
appeared to have forgotten a very recent occasion when, arriv- 
ing at a distant village, I found I had left all my money at 
home except a single coin, a "two-bit" piece, or twenty-five 
cents. I had been very hungry myself, but I knew the horse 
was also hungry, and, moreover, he had to carry me a long 
way. The "two-bits" represented the price, on the one 
hand, of a modest lunch at the "saloon" bar, and on the 
other a feed for the horse— which was it to be ? I decided 
on the latter; the animal took his feed, and I tightened my 
belt. However, no doubt equine memories of services are 
short (not unlike those of human beings at times), and so 
I had to put the best face possible upon it. Unfortunately 
there was no one available to deliver the sack of groceries 
I had purchased; and knowing the empty state of the hut and 
that my companions depended upon my exertions for the 
evening meal — they had gone on a gold-prospecting expedi- 
tion — I decided in a rash moment to carry the sack myself. 
I shall never forget that infernal sack ! By the time I 
reached the river it seemed to weigh half a ton ; and the 
corners of meat-tins and other things rubbed my shoulders 
sore. One glance at the turgid stream was enough. It had 
risen, and was still rising. How was I to get across ? There 
was nothing for it but to venture into the stream, which I 
did. The water surged round me up to my knees, up to my 
waist, whilst the sandy bottom gave way at every step, 
causing me to reel and stagger like a drunken man. It was 
too deep for safety, and I strove to return ; but at the moment 
the current took me off my feet and carried me, battling, half 
swimming, down stream. But I would not let go the infernal 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 127 

sack, whose weight kept dragging me down Hke lead. Once 
I went clean underneath — was I to be drowned like a rat 
in a California mountain stream ; and my body recovered on 
some sand-bar miles away ? I did not believe myself destined 
for so ignominious an end, and taking heart, struck out and 
reached a half-floating trunk projecting from the bank — a 
trunk which we had felled to form a bridge across the stream 
before it rose. With a great sigh of relief I clambered up 
it — still holding that appalling sack — and so reached the 
bank. As I did so a wave of water came down, surging 
wide and foaming along, and carried off the tree in a turbid 
flood ! I soon gained the hut, and tumbling out the soaked 
articles on the floor— alas ! for the sugar and the coffee — my 
companions, two Britishers like myself, sorted them out 
whilst I changed my garments. 

This river was continually fighting against us and cutting 
oft' our sources of food supply. On one occasion we had no 
meat for several weeks, until one day — I was absent myself 
scouring the forest for game — an old bull came along, 
probably from some abandoned ranch. My two companions 
would not let slip the chance. They sallied out armed with 
Winchesters and did pursue that unfortunate bull over hill 
and dale, loading him with ill-directed bullets, until — as it 
was afterwards averred — he laid down and expired from sheer 
weariness from the weight of lead ! When I returned I found 
the outside of the hut festooned with strips of meat; and we 
had jerked beef for a period. It was terribly tough, though ! 
The dry air of California permits the curing of meat in this 
way. The term "jerked," it is interesting to recollect, is a, 
corruption of the Peruvian or Chilean-Indian word "charqui." 
For myself I had not returned empty-handed. After hours of 
fruitless wandering among the manzanite bushes and pines, 
seeing neither bird nor quadruped — for game is scarce at 
times — I suddenly saw a long-tailed hare moving cautiously 
from a clump of bushes, and swinging round, brought him 
down at fifty paces. A moment afterwards I heard the 
familiar cry of the Californian quail near at hand. Now, 
these birds habitually fly very low over the bushes, dipping 
down among them with sharpened instinct to get under 
cover, and are often very difficult to obtain on the wing. 



128 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

But they have another and fatal habit, which renders them 
easy prey to the hunter : the habit of walking in single file 
close together along the little natural paths between the 
shrubs. So I waited, and when they came in view end on, 
let fly, mowing down no less than seven plump beauties with 
one barrel. I did not like to kill them in this w^ay, for the 
sportsman loves not to kill hare on form or bird except on 
wing; but necessity knows no laws. A few minutes after- 
wards a pair of fine wood-pigeons came floating along on 
airy wing, and dropped prettil}^ to the gun's report, and I 
felt in a measure vindicated as to sportsmanship. What a 
singular sense is that of the sudden gratification which fills 
the chasseur when his victim falls ! "It is a fine day; let us 
go out and kill something." Yet, personally, I must confess 
that this has always been followed by a pang of regret — 
in the glazing eye of the deer, or the beautiful inert little 
head of the quail or the wood-pigeon, nature seems to speak 
some reproach ! 

Of big game in California the wild sheep are, perhaps, the 
most famous — the grizzly bear is nearly extinct, or has gone 
farther north. These well-known big-horns, or Rocky 
Mountain sheep, are of exceeding beauty and majesty, and 
are sometimes found in large bands, up to fifty or more. In 
the snowy winter they descend to the lowlands, notwith- 
standing which they are as fearless of storms as they are of 
precipices and avalanches, living as they do in the most remote 
of the mountain fastnesses among the inaccessible crags. 
In such places, from thirteen thousand feet or more above sea 
level, they bring forth their young, generally in some shel- 
tered nook selected at what are elevations higher than the 
eyries of the eagles ! Indeed, the elevation of the habitat 
of these beautiful animals is sometimes almost as great as 
that of the vicuiia and guanaco of the Andine uplands of 
Peru and Chile, where I have sometimes come across bands 
of forty or fifty of these graceful camel-kindred. These great 
Rocky Mountain sheep are famous for their extraordinary 
power of jumping down precipices in a way that probably 
no other animal can perform. Eye-witnesses have described 
their bounding or diving down almost sheer rock-walls for 
two hundred feet into the caiion below when startled, alight- 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 129 

ing on their horns on the ground uninjured and unconcerned. 
But their usual mode of descent is by successive bounds 
from the face of the precipices, as if breaking the fall — a 
mode of remarkable locomotion for which their feet seem 
to be adapted by nature, with a species of soft, tough pad to 
grip the rocks, like an india-rubber cushion. 

The hasty tourist in California may complain of the lack 
of bird and animal life, but the more leisurely sojourner 
will find that game abounds in many regions. Yet it is true 
that one may pass a whole day and see neither rabbit, squirrel, 
nor feathered denizen. In some regions deer are plentiful; 
and California possesses three kinds, the most abundant of 
which is the Cervus Columbian us, or black-tailed deer. 
Other denizens of the forests, crags and plains are the 
squirrels, wolves, coyotes, long-tailed hares and badgers. 

If the mountain forests of this part of the Great Pacific 
Coast are varied and wonderful with their bay trees and 
special attributes, so are also the sea-forests of the shore, the 
submarine groves and their denizens, for which Southern 
California is famous. For the observation of these beautiful 
sea-plants, glass-bottomed boats are provided at Monterey 
and Santa Catalina, and the fisherman or observer can gaze 
down forty or fifty feet into the translucent water upon the 
giant kelp and the fishes, which stand out in iridescent 
colours against the green seaweed. Flights of blue perch, 
huge white or mauve sea bass, giant black bass weighing 
three hundred pounds; myriads of jelly fishes and singular 
sparkling crabs may be seen, a wealth of sea life of interest 
and beauty. Indeed, the possibilities of sport and fishing 
in California forms a subject so extensive as to call for a 
literature of its own. 

The great sandy beaches of the Californian coast stretch 
southwardly from the Golden Gate with but few inlets, and 
viewed from the sea the coast presents the arid appearance 
which is characteristic of much of the Pacific Coast of America 
whether in California or in Peru and Chile. Many of the 
ports of call for steamers on the Californian coast are 
subject to heavy surf and considerable variations of tide- 
level, and steamers have difficulties in discharging in some 
places consequent upon these conditions. On one occasion I 

K 



130 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

travelled up the coast from San Diego in a coasting steamer, 
and the skipper, at one of these ports, doubtless being in a 
hurry to discharge his freight, adopted the method of letting 
go an anchor and allowing the steamer to drift in on the rollers 
till her keel almost scraped bottom, so as to approach the end 
of the pier — a method which seemed to the passengers more 
ingenious than safe or comfortable ! Wrecks are not infre- 
quent upon this coast; and the ribs of many a steamer have 
laid unsalvable on the teeth of the Golden Gate, their navi- 
gators having failed to make the entrance in the dense mist 
which hangs around that singular cleft in the Californian 
coast range at certain seasons. I saw a big liner of the 
Panama Line which lay there intact on an even keel for half 
a year, with sharp rocks firmly anchoring her to the spot. 
There she lay, a noble hulk, never to plough the waves again, 
furnishing a spectacle for launch-loads of cheap excursion- 
ists from San Francisco until a kindly storm broke her up 
and took her to rest into the depths of the great watery 
chasm of the harbour's mouth. 

The surf-beaten, wind-swept shore of the San Francisco 
promontory, blown into sand-dunes by the perennial winds, 
and shrouded often in the dense fogs which cover the Cali- 
fornian coast at times, speak eloquently of shipwrecks and 
adventures in years gone by. To the south the bones of 
old ships lie here and there, and the bones of whales; and 
the hoarse cry of the seals upon the rocks strikes on the ears 
amid the roar of the surf. Far away the points of the 
Farallons may be seen on a clear day, faint in the haze of the 
Pacific Ocean horizon. And buried treasure — Ha! I saw a 
Scandinavian sailor one day sounding the beach with an iron 
rod at high-water mark to discover a chest of Spanish 
doubloons and church plate which — he said — was lying there; 
and he begged that I would help him with small funds where- 
with to prosecute his search, and share the treasure. Being 
at leisure at the moment I lent ear to his singular yarn. He 
told me that a friend of his, an old "forty-niner " of San Fran- 
cisco, had discovered this chest years ago, but owing to the 
lawless state of things at that time he had only been able to 
take hastily a handful of the gold, and then cover up the 
heavy chest with sand, taking angles and signs to the spot; 



CALIFORNIA: THE LAND OF GOLD 131 

and that with the aid of the old man's map, which he showed 
me, he was now probing for the old chest. 

Well, more for the adventure of the thing than for any 
definite expectation of treasure trove (there was always the 
possibility), I agreed to assist to the extent of one hundred 
dollars, which should limit my liability, and the old "forty- 
niner," aged, rheumatic, yet full of belief in the wonderful 
chest, having sought me out, we agreed upon respective 
thirds in its supposed contents : a prospective share which 
they assigned me unasked. Forthwith the Dane and the 
"forty-niner," animated by this addition of capital, diligently 
sounded the beach within the area prescribed by their map, 
whilst I set out to fulfil my purpose of examining the aurifer- 
ous deposits of black sand which exist upon the beach beneath 
the cliffs upon that part of the coast. 

I was going to bed a few nights afterwards in my hotel in 
San Francisco w^hen the Dane appeared. "Come! We 
have found the chest ! " he exclaimed in tones of excited 
secrecy. "Only a foot of sand and water lies between us and 
the gold ! " Now, whilst I had entertained grave doubts of 
this wild goose chase, there was, of course, always the possi- 
bility to be considered, and if they had really found some- 
thing I must be in at the death. So to the beach — a good 
many miles from the city — we repaired, and there was a 
glimmering light in the tent where the ancient "forty-niner" 
kept guard over the place ; where a rude shaft of planks had 
been sunk in the sand and a pump installed to keep out the 
water. But their last dollar was gone, and another labourer 
was required to help at the pump. To cut a long story short 
we secured a labourer on the morrow ; but, somehow, the 
story of the supposed find had got abroad and a crowd of 
people and some enterprising reporters came out to the scene 
of operations. The crowd increased so much that a special 
policeman had to be told off to keep order, and we thought 
it well to suspend operations until nightfall. On the follow- 
ing day, however, the sea broke in, and all the water had to be 
pumped out of the shaft again. "The sea seeks to hold the 
treasure," the Dane averred. In the newspapers of San 
Francisco there appeared a thrilling account: "Great 
Treasure Trove on the Ocean Beach : Spanish Galleon 

K 2 



132 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Unearthed : An Englishman and a Dane to make a fortune 
from a Pirate Hoard ! " and so forth, with a picture of my- 
self, inscribed as an Englishman with "raining-in-London- 
trousers " on. This, I must explain, is an allusion to the 
British habit of turning up the bottom of the trousers, and 
is humorously supposed to be a barometric-sartorial indica- 
tion of the state of the weather in London ! 

At last the sun set, the crowd dispersed, the evening 
breeze whispered among the sandhills, and the Dane, the 
"forty-niner," the labourer and myself prepared to unearth 
the object — whatever it might be — which they had located at 
the bottom of the shaft. The Dane, who had sailed many seas 
and was a typically superstitious subject, said he had seen a 
phantom ship run ashore there on the previous night, and 
that it was an omen — good or bad he did not seem to know ! 
Well, we got our tackle to work and, pumping out the last 
foot of water, cleared away the sand at the bottom of the 
shaft. What lay there ? . . . 

Probably that treasure chest is lying somewhere still on 
San Francisco beach, for all we found was part of the wreck- 
age of an ancient hull ; and I left the Dane and his com- 
panion almost shedding tears of disappointment upon the 
sandy beach. But they were not to be baulked of all profit, 
for, going out again on the following day — it was Sunday — 
I beheld a great crowd thronging around the spot, which 
the two men had enclosed with canvas, and the "forty-niner" 
was holding a sack into which he was dropping the ten-cent 
pieces which the public was thronging to pay to view the 
"Spanish treasure chest," as a large placard outside informed 
them, "Admission ten cents! " 




-'4 




- ^-2 


-1J 




'J 

o 



VI 

CALIFORNIA : THE LAND OF GIANT TREES, GREAT CANONS 
AND BIG ORANGES 

As already observed, California is divided topographically 
into two regions — Northern and Southern California. Of 
the northern part the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys, 
and the Sierra Nevada and the coast range, which bound it on 
either side, are the main natural features. The topography of 
Southern California differs greatly, as will be described. 

The resources of the Great Central Valley, as already 
shown, are varied and extensive. The numerous towns and 
villages which have sprung up throughout the state are 
marvels of rapid growth of civilization in a land where, fifty 
or sixty years ago, the desert stretched uncompromisingly 
over the face of the country. The only approach to such 
development elsewhere on the Great Pacific Coast is that of 
British Columbia and Vancouver, and the region of Puget 
Sound, to the north. Southwardly, from Mexico to Chile, 
there is, so far, no such marked evolution of mankind in 
America. 

The San Joaquin valley is traversed longitudinally by two 
lines of railway, belonging to the Southern Pacific Company, 
one of the largest of the huge railway systems of the United 
States. Some years ago the monopoly of traffic and high 
prices charged for transport by this company aroused the 
indignation of the industrial community of the country, who 
declared that the Southern Pacific Company had taken as 
their motto, "All the traffic will bear," and had fixed their 
tariff accordingly; and the enterprising citizens organized 
themselves into a company and began the construction of a 
rival line down the valley. These questions, however, have 
been solved, and the Southern Pacific Railway is an active 
agent in the state's advancement. In addition to the valley 
lines and their branches there is also a railway paralleling 

133 



134 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the coast, and a further network of short lines in the import- 
ant region to the east of San Francisco Bay, which merge 
into the main line running north into Oregon and British 
Columbia. To the south the railways traverse Southern 
California and thence the "Sunset Route" and the Santa F^ 
lines take their way through Arizona to the east, and still 
farther south into the republic of Mexico. 

Not far from San Francisco Bay is Stockton, a town 
which enjoys the position of being at the head of tide-water 
navigation on the San Joaquin River, and is an important 
and growing commercial centre about a hundred miles to the 
east of San Francisco, with a considerable traffic to the bay. 
The importance of this traffic will be gathered from the fact 
that it is exceeded by only three rivers in North America. 
The great "tule" lands, or reed-swamps of the delta, which 
lie along the river valley in this neighbourhood, have been 
reclaimed to some extent, and are found to be very valuable 
from their fertility. The district, from its dykes, have been 
termed the California Netherlands, and the lands are em- 
ployed for cattle and dairying industries. As a city Stockton 
is well built, with numerous industries of a manufacturing 
nature, which the adjacent coal and natural gas fields supply 
with fuel. 

The city of Oakland lies across the bay from San Fran- 
cisco, reached by the great ferry steamers which ply con- 
stantly to and fro ; and it forms the point of departure for 
the overland route — the main line railways — to the east. It 
is a city of fine suburban homes, and is growing with that 
remarkable rapidity possible in these western towns. As 
its name implies it was formerly a great oak park : the 
splendid oaks such as California produces in profusion. 
Near at hand is Berkeley, the seat of the famous California 
University. Like the other great California seat of learn- 
ing — the Stanford University at Palo Alto — this owes its 
existence mainly to the generosity of a Californian million- 
aire, and its wealth and resources are very considerable. 
These institutions boast that they are absolutely free, without 
restrictions of race or sex. Nevertheless, the "colour line" 
is jealously drawn in all American institutions in a way 
unknown in Britain or British dependencies. 



CALIFORNIA 135 

Leaving these progressive and handsome places, which are 
under the commercial and populating influence of the port of 
San Francisco, and proceeding northwardly beyond Sacra- 
mento, the capital, up the valley, or southwardly up or down 
the coast, the towns become smaller, and industries give place 
to agriculture. Alameda, San ]os6, Fresno, Bakersfield, 
Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, Monterey and others are all 
important places. 

The Californians are exceedingly proud — not without 
reason — of their state. The pamphlets and enthusiastic 
newspaper accounts issued, constantly setting forth the 
advantages of that favoured land, evoke a smile from the 
foreign reader. In the first place they bring forward their 
climate and area. A map of California issued by enter- 
prising railway and land agents shows the area of the 
countr}^ — 158,360 square miles^ — laid out with the forms of 
the states of the "effete East" spread upon it, such as 
New York State, Maine, Massachusetts, Ohio and several 
others, with generous spaces left in between ! There is 
nothing mean about the Californians, and they want to show 
how their own land is equivalent to the combined area of 
the others, with room to spare ! 

California's greatest attractive asset has been its climate; 
and, indeed, this portion of the Great Pacific Coast is remark- 
ably favoured by nature in this respect. So much was the 
climate advertised during the times of the "boom" that it 
was at length sarcastically averred that people "could not 
live on climate alone " ! The climate of California is largely 
determined by the prevailing winds blowing westwardly 
from the Pacific. Winter and summer do not exist as known 
elsewhere; only a wet and dry season. The effect of these 
winds is most marked on the coast, less so beyond the coast 
hills in the Sacramento valley ; whilst the great basin-deserts 
east of the Sierra Nevada do not feel their effects at all. It 
is interesting to compare the wind-climatic effects of Cali- 
fornia with those of Peru, which I have described in the 
chapters devoted to the old land of the Incas. 

The Californian temperatures exactly follow the topography 
of the state, in well-defined belts. First is a hot zone, rang- 
ing from 68° to 72°, occupying the low desert lands east of 



136 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the sierra and of the San Bernardino ranges; next a zone 
of 60° to 68°, running up the base of the Sacramento and 
San Joaquin valleys in Northern California and covering the 
coast zone of Southern California ; next the temperate belt 
of 52° to 60^ in the long foothill zone of the Great Central or 
Sacramento and San Joaquin valleys, and the coast strip 
between the coast range and the sea in Northern California, 
which includes the whole of the San Francisco region and 
the coast strip north and south and part of the eastern slope 
of the sierras ; then a 44° to 52° zone on the higher slopes, 
both sides, of the Sierra Nevada, and lastly the highest 
flanks and caiions and the summits of the Sierra Nevada itself 
and the coast range. Thus the traveller may select any 
climate he may desire by seeking the valleys or the moun- 
tains. Experts have said that the air is more equable and 
rejuvenating here than in the south of France or on the hill- 
slopes of Italy; and it certainly has wonderful advantages for 
out-door workers, whilst the growing season may be said to 
be perennial. The mean temperature for the state as a whole 
is 60°, and for San Francisco 65°. The mean annual temper- 
ature for Southern California is about 62° ; whilst its 
maximum goes up to 100°, which in the characteristic dry 
atmosphere seems much less. In winter light frosts are pre- 
valent in the early morning in Southern California; whilst 
in the sierra region the country is ice-bound and snow-bound 
in winter, as described before. It is to be recollected that the 
wind and fog from the sea in the northern region are at 
times exceedingly cold and unpleasant, and, as a rule, San 
Francisco may be looked upon as a cool rather than a hot 
city. The delicious climate and atmosphere of Southern 
California have rendered that part of the country famous. 
The dry, cool, ocean and mountain breezes are in marked con- 
trast with other semi-tropical places. The occasional drawbacks 
are the wind-and-dust-storms or "northers," hot winds, sand- 
laden, which obscure the air when they occur, like the adobe 
dust-storms of Mexico. These are unpleasant, especially 
when you are camping : dust covers everything, and your 
meals, if in tent or hut, consist of a percentage of dry pul- 
verized earth. B'lit none of these blemishes can detract 
much from California's attractive asset of her climate, and if 



CALIFORNIA 137 

every petty town calls itself the Spain or Italy of America we 
need not, kind reader, find cause for quarrel on this score. 

The big trees of California are the most remarkable things 
in plant life upon the whole of the twelve thousand miles of 
the Great Pacific Coast. The coniferous forests of the North 
Pacific region, of which the various kinds of giant trees are 
the prominent members, have been described as the grandest 
and most beautiful in the world, and probably there is no 
necessity to dispute it. The charm of the Californian forests 
— apart from the size of the trees — is that they are open and 
unobstructed of brushwood; their floors formed by long 
avenues and park-like glades where groups of trees of the 
various species stand apart — a great contrast, for example, 
with the tangled jungles of tropical America, such as the 
Amazon valley or elsewhere, as we who know both may bear 
witness. 

The giant Sequoias and redwoods are found only upon the 
western slope of the Sierra Nevada of California, nowhere 
else in the world, and even there only within a certain latitude 
and well-defined altitude above sea-level. They are the effect 
of certain topographical and climatic causes ; and with their 
(in some cases) five or six thousand years of life and colossal 
form they seem rather to be remnants of a time when the 
world was peopled with strange huge things than part of the 
vegetation of to-day. These giant forest trees existed at one 
time, it has been shown, in various parts of the world — in 
Europe, Greenland, China— as evidenced by fossil remains; 
and they were destroyed during the Ice Age and have only 
survived in California. Here they occur in groves, growing 
upon what were great moraines, and alternating between these 
groves are deep caiions worn out by the waters of glaciers; 
the great glaciers of former ages flowed down the slopes of 
the Californian sierra and left their furrows; whilst the giant 
trees were preserved, and flourished in the warm places 
between these ice-rivers. The boundaries of the glaciers, it 
would seem, determined the boundaries of the big tree groves 
— a singular phenomenon in the life of these regions. The 
"group habit," or grove-forming character, however, of the 
great Sequoias is also explained by the fact that the tree 
grows only from its seed, and the seeds do not migrate far 



138 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

from the parent stem ; they keep close together from their 
singular family habit and have not extended their sphere of 
influence since the Ice Age. The age of the trees has been 
estimated, in some cases, as high as 8,000 years. The great- 
est size encountered is that of 35 feet in diameter of trunk, 
inside the bark, at 4 feet from the ground. The average 
size of the full-grown tree is given as 275 feet in height, with 
a trunk diameter of 29 feet near the ground. In the Sequoia 
groves, or giant forest, which are preserved by the United 
States Government as a national park, lying between King's 
River and Kern River, it is stated that there are more than 
5,000 of these huge trees from 200 to 300 feet high. As we 
observe the landscape from some high point these giant 
Sequoias stand out from among the giant Sugar Pines and 
Yellow Pines, the Red and Silver Firs, and the Cedars with 
an unmistakable form. Their shape is remarkable, with a 
singular air of serenity and proportion which might seem 
to be the result of evolution or development — like the Ionic 
column. The trunks taper gently upwards like the great fluted 
columns of a temple, whose roof might be the sky without 
branches, for 100 feet; the whole structure stands poised 
over its own centre of gravity, with scant but symmetrical 
foliage, as if the teachings of the storm of five thousand years 
had bid it doff all superfluous adornment and content itself 
with its simple, noble dome of evergreen foliage. The 
shadow of these manes of plumed, sober foliage falls athwart 
the great stately trunks like the shadow of its capital pro- 
jected upon an Ionic column in the sunshine. The giant trees 
grow freely from seed, and there is no danger of their 
exhaustion. The great Sequoias exist in well-defined belts at 
the elevation of 5,000 to 8,000 feet above sea-level, form- 
ing part of the marvellous coniferous forests, which are the 
pride of the Californian mountains. Its particular habitat 
is between the belt of the great pines on the one hand 
and of the silver fir on the other. Its northernmost limit 
is upon the central fork of the American river, near the 
line of the Union Pacific Railway, in latitude about 39°, 
and extends southwards along the sierra slope for a dis- 
tance of some 260 miles. In the northerly part of this 
zone, as far as King's River, the Sequoias lie in scattered 




California: Giant Sequoias : Mariposa Grove. 
Roadway through Trunk. 



CALIFORNIA 139 

groups, but southwards they form extensive forests. The 
most visited grove is that of Calaveras, and it is veritably 
tourist-trodden. This grove has lOO giant trees, one 325 feet 
high. Other well-known, but less visited, groves are the 
famous Mariposa Big Trees, somewhat to the south of the 
Yosemite valley ; the Grant National Park, in the King's 
River region ; the Giant Forest of the Sequoia National 
Park, and the Tule River Forest. These huge scenic reserva- 
tions, with their groves, have wisely been retained for the 
nation, and are now guarded from destruction by a body of 
soldiers stationed therein. Most of these giant forests are 
reached by railway and stage coach, and there is hotel accom- 
modation at hand for travellers. 

There is a near relative of the Sequoia gigantca in the 
coast range, and forests of this valuable timber — it is the 
Sequoia senipervirens, or redwood of commerce — exist from 
Monterey, south of the Golden Gate, up to the boundary 
with Oregon, in the north. This tree thrives best in the 
places most exposed to the Pacific fog, and near Santa Cruz, 
south of San Francisco, is a fine grove with specimens 275 
feet high. Other giant trees of California are the mighty 
Sugar or Douglas Pines; full-grown specimens of which com- 
monly have a trunk diameter of 6 to 8 feet, and a height 
of 220 feet; whilst specimens reach 12 feet in trunk diameter. 
These beautiful synmietrical forest monarchs have well been 
termed, from their serene, majestic appearance, "the priests 
of pines, ever addressing the surrounding forests." ^ Grow- 
ing in a wide habitat, from the burning deserts up to the 
edges of ice-bound craters, is another big tree : the Silver 
Pine, with a trunk of 6 feet in diameter and 200 feet high. 

From the big trees to the great caiions is a natural transi- 
tion — Kern River Canon, King's River Caiion and the 
famous Yosemite valley. The latter is in the very heart of 
the Sierra Nevadas, upon the Merced River : one of the 
series of great glacier-carved caiions whose streams, born of 
the sierra snows, flow westwardly down the slopes to join 
the San Joaquin River in the great central California valley. 
It would be beyond the province of this book to attempt much 
description of the scenic wonders of this famous caiion. It 

^ The Mountains of California. John Muir. 



140 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

has been adequately described by many writers and in various 
guide-books; and the Yosemite is the chief point of scenic 
interest towards which the tourist bends his steps. Like 
some other mountain scenery in other parts of the world 
language cannot adequately describe the impressiveness of 
this valley, and many observers have been obliged to fall 
back upon the culminating asseveration that it is the "most 
wonderful and beautiful thing in the world ! " The beauty 
of Yosemite is due, topographically speaking, to the vast 
height of the cliffs rising from it on either hand, and their 
stupenduous and imposing form, like cathedrals and giant 
fortresses of nature's building ; together with its broad level 
floor of great width, covered with natural pasture, meadows 
and groves of giant trees and waterfalls in so unique a 
fashion as to form a veritable natural park. It seems that 
nature has sought to concentrate her scenic powers there in 
one great impressive exhibition. The canon is not a barren 
V-shaped valley with a chaos of tumbled rock and talus, but 
"green grove, emerald meadow, flowery pasture, crystal 
river, crowd up to the solid white feet of lofty precipices ; 
and one looks up to sheer mountain summits three thousand 
or five thousand feet above him in the zenith," to quote from 
a Californian description. 

The length of this wonderful valley is about seven miles, 
and its width half-a-mile in places; whilst the elevation above 
sea-level of its floor is about four thousand feet in the middle. 
Its geological formation has been well studied ; the great 
granite walls, 3,250 feet high at Glacier Point, and others of 
its famous headlands are great cleavages, glacier-polished. 
Mists float upon their brows, long cascades fall down their 
faces, and their bases are bathed by groves of giant trees. 
The valley and its surroundings were ceded by the State of 
California to the Federal Government of the United States 
as a national reservation or park, and it is carefully preserved 
for this good purpose. Adjacent to Yosemite, or within easy 
reach thereof, is the famous Mariposa big tree grove : those 
marvels of Sequoia size, grave and symmetry which I have 
before described, and which have been well termed "the kings 
of the conifers." One of the trees of this grove, the "Grizzly 
Giant," is more than ninety-three feet in trunk circumfer- 




ViKw IN THK Kern River Canon. 



CALIFORNIA 141 

ence, and although its maturity has been reached it is sup- 
posed that the tree will flourish for another five thousand 
years — a total possible life of something like ten thousand 
years ! A tunnel has been cut through the trunk of one of 
these giant trees, and the stage-coaching tourist is driven 
through this, to his wonderment or sense of desecration, 
according to the trend of his mind. Camping in the Yose- 
mite can be performed with ease for those who like campt- 
ing where furnished canvas tents with wooden floors are 
set down to order, and mail and washing called for and 
delivered ! More "strenuous " conditions can be secured for 
those who prefer them; and, indeed, Californian guide-books 
love to term this region the "campers' paradise." 

The King's River canon is a remarkable gorge also in 
the heart of the Sierra Nevadas, about a hundred miles to the 
south-east of Yosemite. The King's River is born in the 
snows of the great culminating peaks of the sierra in the 
region of Mount Whitney, which also dominate the head 
of the Kern River, flowing down to the San Joaquin. The 
King's River caiion is the southernmost of the series of these 
great valleys, and forms a stupendous glacier-sculptured 
caiion ranking only second to Yosemite, which it resembles 
in some respects. Mighty granite walls and cliffs rising 
from natural groves, parks and meadows, threaded by a 
shining river, are presented to the view — the cliffs towering 
upwards three thousand to three thousand five hundred feet 
above the valley floor; whilst along their bases are flowering 
meadows backed by lines of lateral moraines and forests of 
incense cedar and giant sugar pines. Ascending this valley 
to its head, past innumerable clear streams teeming with 
trout which flow through the meadows, up past the glacier 
lakes, the "eyes of the landscape," we reach the summit of 
the Californian sierras, the divortia aqiiarum between the 
watersheds of California and Nevada; and from the crest 
the territory of the latter state, on the eastern side of the 
range, is seen eight thousand feet below. 

The eastern slope of the sierras of California, like that 
of the Andes of Peru, is much steeper than the western. The 
King's River canon rises from the San Joaquin valley 
fourteen thousand feet in sixty or seventy miles; but the 



142 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

mountains fall away from this summit into Nevada with a 
gradient of one thousand feet to the mile. 

Among the remarkable hydrographical features of thei 
American Cordilleras are the glacier-lakes, such as exist from 
California to Peru ; these generally form the head-waters 
of the sierra-descending rivers. In California they lie amid 
deep forest-fringed, snow-capped mountains and escarpments, 
both upon the western and the eastern slopes of the Sierra 
Nevada. Chief among these lakes is Tahoe, a body of the 
clearest and most remarkably-tinted water in the world, occu- 
pying a mountain cup more than twenty miles long and 
thirteen wide, at an elevation of 6,240 feet above sea-level, 
with a depth in places of two thousand feet. Tahoe is fed by 
the snows from the rim of its basin, and it overflows by its 
single outlet, the Truckee River, whose waters have of late 
years been utilized in the adjoining state of Nevada, as later 
described, for purposes of irrigation. The contrast of emerald, 
blue-green, and white, formed by the surface of this lake 
and its reflection, with its foreshore and surrounding peaks 
and fringing forest, may be considered unique in lake 
scenery, and Tahoe has become a well-visited tourist resort, 
easily accessible by the rail, the Southern Pacific, which 
reaches the summit of the Sierra Nevadas slightly to the 
north. Lake Tahoe is partly in California and partly in 
Nevada, as the state boundaries traverse it longitudinally. 

Elsewhere are numerous others of these lakes, some known 
and visited, others absolutely hidden away among the cliffs 
and forests, their margins untrodden and waters unrippled 
except by the mountain birds. They form singularly beau- 
tiful examples of the glacier-sculpture of the sierra ice-age : 
reservoirs in nature's mighty hydraulic machine, which these 
mountains are. 

As elsewhere stated, the topography of California changes 
much towards the south. The coast at Point Concepcion 
turns sharply from its southerly trend to an easterly direc- 
tion ; and the range of mountains which has followed it turns 
inland and curves onwards to join the Sierra Nevada, which 
culminates there at about a hundred miles from the sea, in 
the high snow-clad peaks elsewhere described. This curve 
forms the lower boundary of the San Joaquin valley, and is 



CALIFORNIA 143 

known as the Tehachapi range, one of the counterforts of 
the cordilleran system. Inside this curve the Kern River flows 
in a horseshoe course, going thence northerly and falling 
into Lake Tulare, whence it emerges as the San Joaquin 
River upon its long journey down the valley to San Fran- 
cisco Bay. The Kern River caiion is wild and striking, 
with steep rocky escarpments, clothed at their bases with 
giant pines. The railway ascends to the Tehachapi Pass 
by means of a remarkable "loop," crossing over its own 
track with one of the ingenious "loops" or spiral courses 
to gain altitude often necessary in the construction of trans- 
cordilleran railways. South of Tehachapi lies Southern 
CaHfornia, beautiful land of orange groves : perpetual snow 
on mountains twelve thousand feet high : and azure skies. 

The atmosphere of Southern California is singularly 
clear, and the far-ofT mountains — they may be sixty miles 
or more away from us — seem quite near; and the sculptured 
outlines of their snowy crests as they rise above shimmering 
sandy deserts will remind us of the Andes of Mexico and 
Peru, on a lesser scale. By nature Southern California is 
treeless, and were it not for irrigation it would again be what 
nature made it : an arid desert whose only beings of the 
vegetable world are the cactus and the mimosas. In this, 
again, it shares the characteristics of the Peruvian Andine 
coast zone. The beautiful orange groves fed and watered 
by the hand of man; the luxuriant magnolia avenues, palm 
groves and great eucalyptus trees from far-off Australia, 
with which the Californians have beautified their environ- 
ment, can never entirely atone for the absence of natural 
forests. Southern California is, indeed, as treeless as parts 
of Spain, which it is not unlike in other matters, or as the 
Great Plateau of Mexico. When we consider how precarious 
this artificially induced vegetation is ; when we reflect that 
the negligence of man, or some act of nature — upheaval, 
earthquake, or drying-up of fountain-heads — might cut off 
the water at its source, we cannot but ask ourselves if civiliza- 
tion can be permanent in such regions. Yet we are com- 
forted to a certain extent in these reflections, for did not 
the very source of civilization first live and grow in the 
irrigated lands of the Mediterranean and the Euphrates? 



144 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Southern California is included in the stretch of territory on 
the coast from Santa Barbara to San Diego ; and the curving 
shore-line from Point Concepcion is sheltered to a large 
extent from the Pacific gales by a line of islands which have 
been made into favoured summer-resorts, and such places 
as Avalon and Santa Catalina have become famous for their 
attractions. A description from a Californian source says : 
"In the Bay of Avalon, children paddle about unattended in 
boats that they cannot upset. Indeed, everybody goes row- 
ing and bathing here. There is no surf and no wind, and so 
clear is the water that all the wonderful vegetable and animal 
life on the bottom of the ocean may be seen through a glass- 
bottomed boat, as if the water were of crystal. Seals (sea- 
lions), unmolested, clamber on the rocks. It is a wonderful 
fishing-ground, and on a summer morning a fleet of rowboats 
and naphtha launches may be seen outward bound in search 
of the giant sea bass (reaching a weight of five hundred 
pounds), the leaping tuna (gamiest of all fish), the frolicsome 
and plentiful yellowtail, the albicore, the barracuda, the 
bonito, that philosopher's fish, the grouper; the white and 
rock bass, the halibut, and other denizens of the salty deep. 
An expert shot hunts the flying-fish. In the height of the 
summer season there are often five thousand or six thousand 
people on Catalina Island. There are a number of good 
hotels, but the tent villages, with their macadamized streets, 
and with rows of shade trees, are very attractive, and here 
the crowd lives. The furnished tents are rented very cheap, 
and, at the delicacy stores, dinners hot from the range may 
be purchased inexpensively. Illuminations, nightly concerts 
in a fine pavilion, dancing, a skating rink, make life very 
pleasant upon the island." Here, then, good reader, are 
miniature Blackpools and Scarboroughs upon this Cali- 
fornian coast, where the early Spanish navigators beat against 
fierce gales four hundred years ago. Near here an important 
Pacific Coast seaport is being created, at San Pedro, by 
means of a great breakwater and by dredging the inner 
harbour, so affording Southern California an entrepot and 
shipping centre, which it formerly lacked. 

The coast range of California has become broken down 
in the southern territory in many places, leaving the interior 




Southern California : vSanta Catai^ina Island. 




Orange Trees, Mission Buildings, and Perpetual Snow. 



CALIFORNIA 145 

open to the sea with an extensive plain 150 miles in length. 
This great 7nesa — the Spanish topographical term is used in 
California — extends from the shore back for a width of twenty 
to fifty miles, its structure then merging in the foothills of 
the Sierra Madre and San Bernardino mountains, which are 
the equivalent of the Sierra Nevada of the north. The 
culminating peaks, crowned with perpetual snow, rise to an 
elevation of twelve thousand feet above sea-level here; lati- 
tude 34" N. 

The variety and resource of the region is very consider- 
able, and it may be looked upon in some respects as one of the 
most favoured parts — not only of the Great Pacific Coast, but 
of the whole world. A land of everlasting summer — three 
hundred days of recorded sunshine ; of eternal snow and 
orange groves; of smiling valleys and wind-swept deserts. 
Here also is the home of the American plutocrat cheek by 
jowl with the romance of the Spanish Mission and the Indian 
pueblo, or village. Great sea-beaches and gentle surf; hot 
mineral springs and cool artesian wells; ostriches (imported 
from Africa), humming-birds and meadow larks; roses and 
flowers; and mountain fastnesses where the roar of the moun- 
tain lion is heard; salt plains two hundred feet below the 
level of the sea — all these are features of this singular 
country. So dowered of nature it is, with climate, scenery, and 
plenty, that one might think a special race of virtuous men 
should have arisen to people it ! I cannot truthfully record, 
however, that I found such to be the case as far as my observa- 
tions went, with all due respect to its worthy inhabitants. 

An American writer, full of the beauties of this "promised 
land," asks why novelists should lay the scenes of their novels 
in Andalusia or in Devonshire. This expresses in another 
form the impressions I have given elsewhere, as to man and 
his lack of traditional or romantic connection with his 
environment. Nature may be as beautiful as we wish, but 
without the element of time and history it cannot form the 
background for a "novel." Yet Southern California has a 
link with the romantic past which no other part of the United 
States has, although it is only of the past of a few centuries 
ago. For this is the land of the picturesque and interesting 
Missions, as we shall see : and it has produced a famous novel. 

L 



146 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

As we journey along the Southern Pacific Railway from 
the coast and Los Angeles, a number of snow-clad peaks 
come into view, such as that of Mount San Bernardino, 
10,630 feet; Mount San Gorgonio, 11,485 feet; San Antonio, 
10,080 feet; Mount San Jacinto, 10,805 feet, and others of 
lesser altitude. Here we reach one of the most interesting 
regions of California, that of the old Spanish settlements. 
The mission of San Gabriel was founded in 1771 by the 
padres Somero and Cambon, from Mexico; a handsome pile 
of stone buildings, and the ancient bells hanging in the 
arched belfry at its eastern end still call worshippers to 
service. The oldest orange grove in the country is found in 
its gardens; and one of the largest grape-vines in the world. 
Peaceful and old-world, this Mexican mission, whilst it is in 
marked contrast with the busy cities near at hand, is in 
equally marked conformity with the landscape. Similarly 
antique, or rather older, for it was found in 1769 by the 
Padre Junipero Serra, and is the oldest in the country, is 
the San Diego mission. The San Juan Capistrano mission 
was founded in 1776, and partly destroyed by an earthquake 
in 1812; and the massive ruins of its former beautiful walls 
and high bell-tower attract the traveller's attention. There 
are several other interesting missions of more or less similar 
character at no great distance from Los Angeles, such as 
San Buena Ventura, San Fernando, San Luis Rey and 
Santa Barbara. The last-named is of cut stone, with heavily 
buttressed and solid walls, and two-storey towers with a chime 
of bells. The monks inhabit it and tend their garden as they 
did generations ago. The mission buildings are seen from 
the sea ; and they form one of the attractions of the adjoining 
city of Santa Barbara, which is one of those favoured spots 
of man's work and nature's environment such as have made 
Southern California justly famous. The beautiful valleys in 
this neighbourhood, alternating with rolling hills and 
glimpses of sunlit ocean, overarched by the blue sky, certainly 
form alluring havens of refuge upon this Great Pacific Coast. 
As to the old missions, it is pleasing to record that they are 
generally preserved with care, and, indeed, are looked upon 
with affection by the present dwellers of the land, the Anglo- 
Americans, who have created its wealth and prosperity. The 








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CALIFORNIA 147 



missions recall an interesting phase of civilization in 
America in this remote region, a civilization which the Fran- 
ciscan friars were striving to implant among the poor Cali- 
fornian Indians, contemporaneously with the more strenuous 
growth of America on the Atlantic. Who at that period ever 
supposed that the great republic would extend to the Pacific 
Ocean ? 

The architecture of the missions — partaking of that of 
Italy, Grenada and Mexico — has greatly influenced the style 
of building in California, and the characteristic "mission" 
style is encountered throughout the state in private dwelling, 
public hall, or country house. To these early centres of 
civilization California owes, in origin, her olives, vines and 
oranges, and her art of wine-making; as well as the soft 
Spanish names which mark out the places of the state from 
all her sisters of the union with a romantic and distinguished 
nomenclature. Indeed, the railway in California does but 
follow the old trail between these missions for hundreds of 
miles ; whose valley-settlements full of corn, wine and oil, 
and flocks and herds like those of the Holy Land, were at a 
day's journey apart. 

The wealthy American builds himself exceedingly luxuri- 
ous homes in his Californian surroundings, and loves to 
introduce isome ancient copy therein ; for the American, 
deprived of history, loves that of other lands. I knew a Cali- 
fornian who was about to build a house with a large banquet- 
ing hall, modelled after that of Haddon Hall. Could I — being 
an Englishman — undertake to make a drawing for him ? he 
asked; and he brought out a photograph of the interior of 
the famous Hall. He had never been outside California 
himself, but when I told him that not only did I know the 
Hall but that an ancestor of mine had laid claim to it as his 
property (unsuccessfully, however), nothing would please 
him but that I should make (at my own price) some drawings 
for his builders ! This I did, and I believe the banqueting 
room of Haddon Hall was duplicated there ! 

Numerous growing towns and "garden " cities have sprung 
up in this region. Due to the clear atmosphere. Mount 
Wilson and Mount Lowe have been selected for astronomical 
observations, and the latter is ascended by an inclined railway 

L 2 



148 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

which forms a tourist resort. Pasadena and other handsome 
places, such as Redlands, have come to being where nineteen 
years ago a barren hill-slope, inhabited by horned toads and 
cactuses, existed. To-day it is a city of more than ten thousand 
people, with beautiful surroundings, possessing boulevards, 
electric trams, stone buildings, libraries, and all else that civil- 
ized man can create. So has the Californian desert blossomed. 
Los Angeles is the capital of Southern California, and is in 
some respects a remarkable city. It lies but a few miles from 
the coast, built on a group of low hills, and, like all these places, 
is traversed by good streets, with electric trams or street cars. 
Of remarkably recent growth, the city has become an im- 
portant centre : "sky-scrapers " rear their tower-like structures 
upwards, and beautiful suburban homes attest the profits 
accruing to the citizens from the business performed in the 
tall offices and warehouses. There is a general air of pros- 
perity about these places, which the semi-tropical foliage and 
warm climate add to. To the foreigner, accustomed to the 
harsher colour of life, these places seem almost too smiling 
and prosperous, as if they had more than their share of this 
world's good, without having adequately suffered and worked 
for it ! Also, as in all Anglo-American communities, the 
churches are dwarfed by the business blocks, and in California 
the voice of the Angelus is drowned in the roar of the cities. 

If there is one word to which the Californian pins his 
faith it is the word "fruit." The fruit-growing industry of 
California — a country which little more than half a century 
ago was, in its greater part, a wilderness uninhabited by 
civilized man with the exception of a few Spanish mission- 
aries — is a veritable phenomenon. The transformation from 
sterile plains and sandy deserts to orange groves, orchards 
and vineyards, whose serried rows of fruit-laden trees are 
positively lost in the horizon at times as we look at them, is 
due to one agency — water. The sterile-appearing soil of the 
valleys and plains of the Great Pacific slope — not only in 
California but in British Columbia, Mexico, Peru and Chile — 
show a remarkable latent fertility under the influence of 
water; and artificial irrigation has been the agency which has 
rendered more service to man in those vast regions of Western 
America than any other branch of engineering science. 



CALIFORNIA 149 

The Californian orchards are things to marvel at. Taking 
our stand upon some eminence overlooking any of these 
innumerable valleys and sub-valleys we see countless lines 
of orange trees, lemon trees, grape vines, prune trees, peach 
trees, fig trees and other fruits, extending away to where the 
rows are lost in the haze on the other side of the valley, where 
the fertile soil ends against the bases of the stony hills which 
form the rim of the basin. Each row is laid out with almost 
mathematical precision, whilst brimming irrigation ditches, 
conducting the water from some river beyond the range, 
discharge their life-producing contents into the trenches 
which, passing down each row of trees, feed them individually 
in an intensive cultivation. No dweller in Britain can imagine 
the beauty and importance of these Californian fruit groves 
and the pretty, busy towns to which their industry gives 
being, until he has visited them. Then he will compare the 
moss-grown and neglected orchards of Devonshire therewith, 
and wish that the sturdy British farmer would wake up to the 
possibilities of fruit-growing and a home market. In Britain 
fruit can really only be eaten by people of means — it is too 
expensive for the working classes. So plentiful is it in 
California that I have seen car-loads of pears thrown into San 
Francisco bay in order that the sacks might be used for some 
higher-priced fruit. I once had the contents of a seventy- 
five acre vineyard in California — fine grapes in full maturity 
— offered me for seventy-five cents ! It must be explained, 
however, that this particular vineyard was remote from means 
of transport, and so the grapes would not have paid for pick- 
ing and carriage. The crop was not lost, however; for a 
herd of pigs was turned in to fatten on the fruit. Think of 
it, ye poor of London slums who eye longingly the musty 
apples in greengrocers' shops in London's winter ! Man 
in California has solved the problem of production, but not 
yet of transport or distribution. Even the plentiful Californian 
prunes — something like two hundred million pounds of fruit 
per annum, which form so nourishing and pleasant an article 
of diet — can only be obtained in England at sixpence per 
pound, and even then the enterprising grocer seems often 
to get hold of the poorest and driest specimens of all ! 

The Californian prune is a large sugary plum, and comes 



150 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

to much perfection in the alluvial soil of these valleys, which 
result from the washing-down of the mountain slopes. The 
climate, of a certain temperature and dryness, suits the 
fruit exactly. Prunes are generally grafted on to young 
peach trees; they blossom in March, and their endless rows 
in flower give the great orchards the aspect of being under a 
snowfall. The first crop is yielded after three years from 
grafting, ripening in August, when they turn a deep blue. 
The curing or drying of the fruit is performed by placing 
it for a few moments in a bath of hot water and alkali, which 
slightly cracks the skins, when they are placed out on wooden 
trays in the sun, and left to dry for about a week. I know- 
something about it from having followed the process on the 
spot. After this they are packed. One pound of dried prunes 
is produced from about 2^ pounds of green fruit. In California 
there are some sixty-two thousand acres of prune-bearing 
orchards, the general disposition of the trees being about a 
hundred to the acre, and each tree varies in its yield up to 
eight hundred pounds of fruit. Somewhat different methods 
are followed with the peaches and apricots, which are cut in 
half, treated to a bath of burning sulphur fumes and exposed 
to the sun as before. Acres of the wooden, fruit-covered 
trays are to be seen at fruit-curing time, and the industry 
provides work for a considerable population. 

But the crowning glory of California is her oranges, which 
spring from the alluvial soil in golden rows — often the very 
soil which is impregnated with fine metallic gold, such as is 
recovered by dredging on the flats. The largest citrus fruit- 
growing industry in the world is found in Southern Cali- 
fornia, to the east of the city of Los Angeles, in the well- 
known Riverside valley. Riverside sends away six thou- 
sand car-loads of oranges per annum, and it is calculated 
that the average wealth per capita of its inhabitants is 
greater than in any other American community. The Mag- 
nolia Avenue of Riverside has become famous; and, indeed, 
the whole valley, with its thousands of luxurious orange 
groves and irrigation system, all under conditions of climate, 
scenic beauty and easy conditions of life, may rightly be 
described as unique. Of similar character is Redlands, a 
typical horticultural community with a thousand acres of 



CALIFORNIA 151 

flower-nurseries and twelve thousand acres of orange trees, 
both forming exceedingly lucrative industries for its 
inhabitants. The valley is backed by the snowy peaks 
of the San Bernardino range, rising from 7,000 feet to 
11,500 feet above sea-level. The orange which has made 
California famous, and is one of her main sources of wealth, 
is the well-known seedless, or "Washington navel," which 
was brought from Brazil in 1869. Whilst its origin is con- 
sidered to have been due to some accident of natural develop- 
ment, it has shown no tendency to revert to the type of its 
ancestor, the ordinary orange with seeds. Ten acres of 
Californian orange grove yield, in the sixth year, a value of 
;^6oo or ;^7oo per annum, it is stated. 

Water is the agency which has performed all these wonders 
of horticulture. The mountains and valleys of California 
have provided almost unique conditions for the storage and 
utilization of water. Great reservoirs in the mountains where 
valleys have been dammed up to form artificial lakes ; hun- 
dreds of miles of main and subsidiary canals, conducting the 
water therefrom, taking their sinuous course over steel aque- 
ducts and stone arches and through leagues of wooden or 
iron piping; innumerable artesian wells, where, at a short 
distance below the surface, nature has disposed an under- 
ground flow ; huge flumes, carried for league after league 
through caiion, mountain and forest; and tunnels driven into 
hill-slopes to tap subterranean springs therein— all these we 
have encountered in our journeys, and the science of water- 
supply is so developed and important in California, and so 
varied that the magic word "hydraulics" might be blazoned 
on its scutcheon. Thus is the insufficiency of the rainfall 
overcome. In a remote valley I found an old man driving 
a small heading or tunnel into a stony hill. A gold-mine? 
No; far from it! Yet a gold-mine in a sense, for he was 
burrowing into the hill to find water — a common method in 
California — and the stream when tapped would yield him a 
gold-mine of an orange grove on the bit of arid plain at the 
foot of his hill, where his humble shanty stood. There is a 
charm and fascination to the engineer in this making of 
canals and ways for water around hills and through hill-spurs, 
across caiions in flume or syphon far away from the head- 



152 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

gate in the mountain channel — a charm, I say, greater, per- 
haps, than that of any other work of the engineer. The 
"treasures of the snow" are yielded up in obedience to the 
dictates of the theodolite and the shovel — an ode and elegy 
to nature and to the efforts which man may make in his 
conquest of the desert ! 

Wine is a famous product of the Pacific Coast — California, 
Peru or Chile. Whilst the wine-makers of all these countries 
continually assert that their product is equal to that of Euro- 
pean wine-producing countries, this must be looked upon as 
scarcely proven. Splendid wine is produced in California, 
Peru and Chile, but it is to be recollected that the vine is not 
indigenous to America, as it was implanted there less than 
four centuries ago by the Spaniards. Wine-making is the 
growth of ages, and it is not to be expected that the few 
decades of the Californian industry should yet be able to 
usurp the slow growth of time and experience of Europe. 
In this, as in other matters, America must wait the lapse of 
time before she is at the level of old Europe — whether it be 
wine-making or the making of literature and character. 

Similar remarks hold good to some extent with regard to 
fruit in general. The orange was another Spanish gift to 
America, and whilst it comes to great perfection of shape, 
size and colour on the Californian slope, it is not necessarily 
the equal in flavour and aroma of the oranges of older regions. 
I know the Californian will protest, but the irrigation of 
fruit, whilst producing magnificence of appearance, does not 
always produce flavour. Perhaps Dame Nature is too much 
caressed in these orchards ! Irrigating and cultivating are 
scientific and perfect, but Nature is not always to be wooed, 
and sometimes the half-neglected orange on a stony hillside 
is of finer taste than its great juicy cousin of the tended 
orchard. The same holds good to some extent with flowers; 
and the huge, magnificent Californian violet has not the aroma 
of its modest cousin, the British wood-violet. Even Pliny 
wrote that olives flourish best on stony hill-slopes, or amid 
abandoned ruins ! Perhaps oranges are like men and 
women : when they are too carefully nurtured and too pros- 
perous they tend to run off to belly and raiment ! 



VII 

THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 

California, politically, is one of the states of the Federa- 
tion of the United States, and was admitted to the union in 
1850. But the first we hear of California, as already described 
in the historical sketch, is after the time of Cortes : the 
exploration of the indefatigable Jesuits, who founded their 
missions there and laid the basis of European civilization 
there under the a?gis of Spain. Elsewhere I have given a 
brief description of the missions remaining to-day. The state 
is governed by a state governor and state legislature, after 
the manner of all the political divisions of the United States; 
and all the machinery of government and law-making — as 
regards those laws which are of a local nature — exists, and 
operates from the handsome state capital of Sacramento, upon 
the river of the same name (reached both by rail and steamer 
from San Francisco). All the political and legislative 
officials are nominated by direct elections, which are carried 
out at the time of the general presidential election of the 
United States. The state entirely controls its own internal 
affairs, except as to matters which come under ordinary 
United States law ; but all international conditions are under 
the control of the Federal Government at Washington. It 
is not often that any clash occurs between the individual 
state and the supreme Government; but an instance was 
furnished recently in the matter of anti-Japanese legislation, 
when the federal authority had to be asserted. 

California is divided for purposes of government into 
fifty-seven counties, with a total area for the state of 158,360 
square miles, and a total population of i J million inhabitants. 
The state is bounded on the north by the state of Oregon ; 
on the east by the Sierra Nevada and the state of Nevada; 
on the south by the republic of Mexico (Baja or Lower 

153 



154 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

California); and on the west by the Pacific Ocean. "From 
Siskiyou to San Diego ; from the sierra to the sea," is the 
CaHfornian poet's definition of the state environment — those 
being the names of the northernmost and southernmost 
counties respectively. California is divided topographically 
into two main regions : Northern California and Southern 
California, as elsewhere described. Of the fifty-seven 
counties more than forty bear Spanish names, such as Los 
Angeles, Contra Costa, Alameda, San Bernardino, Santa 
Cruz, Mariposa, etc. (at least ten have the designation of 
saints, whether male or female). Each county has its county 
seat or capital town, and the principal have already been 
named. The population of San Francisco is 350,000; that of 
Los Angeles 300,000; Oakland 200,000; whilst there are some 
eight or more county towns with 10,000 to 25,000 inhabitants. 
The foreign-born element is about twenty-five per cent, of 
the population, for California is a very cosmopolitan state. 
The Chinese account for about three per cent., but negroes 
are few. "The Chinese must go!" has long been the cry 
in California. I once witnessed a procession of unemployed 
in San Francisco streets, and a banner carried displayed the 
sarcastic legend, "Melican man must go! " The "Melican," 
it must be explained, is the Chinese word for "American." 

The English and Spanish-speaking people have both com- 
bined to a certain extent to produce the Californian ; but the 
Anglo-Saxon predominates, and a type and individuality has 
become evolved to a certain extent. The indigenous tribes, 
the Indian people of California, have not blended with the 
Anglo-American race, except in a few instances via the 
Mexicans, who were the former owners of the lands, and who 
remained after the American occupation. There is, indeed, 
a great difference between the Anglo-American and the 
Spanish- American. The first forms no mixed race with 
the Indian, whilst the second forms it so strongly as to con- 
stitute it the basis of their population and a new nationality, 
as in Mexico or Peru. 

There is another marked difference between the Californian 
and the Spanish-speaking peoples who inhabit the Great 
Pacific Coast for eight thousand miles southwardly — they are 
not divided by class distinctions. In this they are much more 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 155 

truly "republican" than their southern neighbours. There 
is no aristocracy as in Mexico, Colombia, Peru or Chile, 
and no half-breed, or mestizo, class at all, except the remaining 
Mexican element. It would be impossible that such could 
arise or have arisen in a community such as California, whose 
elements of population are subject to constant interchange 
with the rest of the United States ; for, notwithstanding the 
barrier interposed by the great Sierra Nevada, men come and 
go between east and west on the great trans-continental rail- 
ways; so that ideas are always in a state of flux and habits 
general. The Americans are a remarkable people for travelling. 
They are ever running across their continent and up and 
down it with the activity of ants, with one underlying motive 
— business. The powers of modern usury are eloquently 
depicted in American railroads and hotels, and the ceaseless 
restless life of barter which is the soul — at present — of these 
remarkable people. This constant flux and movement natur- 
ally prevents the crystallization of the Californian into the 
distinct nationality which their geographical environment 
and history might otherwise have induced ; although, as 
mentioned before, there is somewhat of a Californian type in 
being. 

In addition to the profuse Spanish nomenclature in Cali- 
fornia, it is interesting to note the place-names given by the 
Anglo-American (of course all the Spanish names are not 
necessarilv of early Spanish origin) and other settlers and 
"boomers." No doubt where it was possible some local and 
topographical designation was selected ; but in a great many 
cases nothing of the kind existed, and the baptism of any 
particular spot resulted from the imagination of its particular 
sponsor. Thus taking at random the names of small stations 
on the Californian railways, we find such places as Snowdon, 
Grenada, Dunsmuir, Red BlufT, Durham, Germantown, 
Palermo, Ely, Newcastle, Dutch Flat, Gold Run, Blue 
Caiion, Crystal Lake, Cicero, Poverty Flat, Chinese, Yar- 
mouth, Emerald, Delhi, Ceres, Livingston, Arundel, Geneva, 
Athlone, Firebaugh, Wheatville, Exeter, Tipton, Basalt, 
Bengal, Siam, and a host of others. Whilst upon the rail- 
way that reaches out upon the great Mojave Desert we find 
such suggestive names as Pisgah and Bagdad ! Truly these 



156 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

names of places, given for all time, speak eloquently of the 
variety of race and thought of the new peoples of California 
and the West. Even the end of this mortal coil seems to 
have been reached in Tombstone, Arizona ! 

The language spoken in California is, of course, English. 
Spanish, however, is spoken largely by the considerable 
Mexican element, and in San Francisco there are, or rather 
were before the earthquake, colonies of Italians, Greeks, 
Spaniards, French and other people who retained their own 
languages and customs generally. There was in addition 
the Chinese quarter, or "Chinatown," which, however, has 
been removed farther away in the New San Francisco which 
is arising from its ashes. Another remarkable foreign 
feature in San Francisco was the congeries of streets or alleys 
containing numerous small dwellings inhabited by the demi- 
monde ; women of French, Japanese, Spanish, Italian and 
other nationalities who existed under the recognition of the 
law as customary in some countries, and who wore their 
national dress and played their national musical instruments 
in their respective streets in view of the public. 

In Western Anglo-America, in popular parlance, the various 
European or American races are grouped under two main 
headings — " Dutch " and " Dago." " Dutch " is the slang term 
for all people of German, Holland, Scandinavian (Sweden, 
Norway, Denmark, etc.) origin, whilst "Dago" covers the 
Latin race, including Spaniards, Italians, French, Mexicans, 
etc. These are, of course, unofficial or slang designations. 

The Californians as a people are of marked European 
type, white, of good stature and phvsiognomv, vigorous and 
enterprising. The women generally are handsome and 
vivacious,, and are perhaps more of a special type than the 
men. California scarcelv partakes of the character of a 
pastoral community, such as Mexico, nor is there the same 
custom of hospitality to be encountered in the interior as in 
Spanish-America. The character of the people, to British 
eyes, seems overshadowed at times by the almost aggressive 
incivility and cynical shrewdness common to the Western 
American, which often hides their otherwise good qualities. 

How do the people of California as a whole impress the 
foreigner? In the cities they are much the same as any other 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 157 

citizens of the United States or elsewhere. But there has 
always been in political centres a strong element of low and 
unscrupulous office-holders; and, remarkable as it may seem, 
some notorious rascals have held the highest places of civic 
authority. "Graft," jobbery, corruption and the saloon 
element have dominated San Francisco politics as they have 
so often controlled those of Chicago or New York,i and the 
educated foreigner is always struck by the low type of man 
who holds city offices. The sinister shadow of Tammany 
stretches right across the continent, and it must be long 
before the American people reach higher ideals in public 
affairs. American cities and politics are honeycombed by 
the vile methods of low-class politicians : a web of civilized 
savagery which, if it continue, would seem only expurgeable 
by some visitation of wrath from above. Nothing can be 
more remote from ideals of justice and liberty such as the 
worthy progenitors of the nation, whether Pilgrim Fathers 
or the educated or exemplary settlers of New England, 
nourished, than the low criminal standard of civic duty 
which has taken possession of this "free" nation. That 
clean new civilization which a clean new world might have 
been expected to produce, and the real principle of brother- 
hood of man, which, saying they found it not in the Old 
World, the pioneers set out to establish in the New : where 
is it? America has had a unique opportunity in the history 
of the world for a step forward towards the milennium. Has 
she made it? It would be kindest not to press these ques- 
tions too closely. The United States civilization is in an 
unlovely phase of its development, and perhaps when the 
fevered dream of "get-rich-quick" is past, when the tawdry 
"society" class, aping the ancient world of Europe, has 
turned to something nobler, then will refinement and honour 
be held in esteem. 

It is not to be supposed that this bad element which 
controls American municipal politics in California is typical 
of the people at large. The Californians consist of a great 

^ " After investigation the Mayor of New York has issued a report which 
denounces the police administration as a corporation which systematically 
violates the law. The report has created a profound impression. The 
Mayor has taken the police administration under his own control." Vide 
the press, July i, 1909. This is only part of New York's history. 



158 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

bulk of sober, God-fearing people, respecters of the law and 
upholders of decency and order. Indeed, it happens at times 
in California, as in New York or Chicago, that the good 
citizen arises in his wrath and numbers, and going to the 
poll at election time kicks out the rotten element and sub- 
stitutes a better one, more representative of his own class. 
Unfortunately, however, his apathy is not easily overcome, 
and the insidious "Tammany" element does but lay low 
and bide its time, and by means of the remarkable organiza- 
tion of its nefarious forces does not long delay in getting 
hold of the reins of government again, and in controlling 
the public funds to the benefit of its own pocket. 

The Californian women present one feature to the observer 
ever presented by American peoples — they are much more 
refined than their men. This is not necessarily a matter for 
surprise, for California has not yet had time to produce a 
refined leisure or professional class, such as is the powerful 
social feature of Britain. Californians are workers generally, 
and what leisure class does exist is still very much in course 
of development. Until recent years many of the exceedingly 
wealthy men of the state, even the millionaires, were men 
of relatively small education, and in some cases were even 
illiterate. This was not their fault. They were men often 
who sprang from the early pioneer class, and from their enter- 
prise had amassed wealth. Among some of California's 
well-known millionaire names, past and present, have been 
men of poor Irish extraction, who sought their fortunes in 
early days and grew up with the state. Remarkable it is 
that the Emerald Isle, in the far-off North Atlantic, should 
have furnished the material for these new centres of wealth 
upon the Great Pacific Coast ! 

' There is a certain condition which seems to present itself 
to the British observer in California and America generally 
— the Anglo-American is not in harmony with nature. He 
seems too new, too aggressive, too uncivil. You do not get 
this impression in Europe, either among its peasantry or 
its upper class. Nor do you get it in Mexico, or any other 
part of Spanish-America. The Anglo-American with his 
oaths and overalls, his "I-am-as-good-as-you-and-probably- 
better " air and manner, his disregard or ignorance of native 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 159 

refinement, all go to render the American civilization — in 
European eyes — something singularly apart from the land 
itself. Nowhere do you find this so strongly marked as in 
camping, or hunting or in the country districts generally. 
The rude fellow you have hired to assist you bristles with 
aggressive equality. It is not that you want to patronize or 
bully him, for the travelled Englishman in other countries 
makes friends of his dependants, but no such friendship is 
possible in America, where the relations of employer and 
employed are but a system of armed neutrality which 
frequently breaks out into open warfare. In our journeyings 
in Western America one of the greatest reliefs we can experi- 
ence is to exchange the American boor for the courteous and 
careful, if less honest and reliable, Mexican. From the 
American waiter who bangs your plate down in front of you 
at the hotel, or the post-ofiice clerk who sells you stamps 
and almost insults you if you ask for information, down to 
the ill-dressed, ill-mannered denizen of the tumble-down 
ranch you may seek to obtain refreshment at in the wilds, 
all are imbued with this spirit. You approach a handsome 
country estate, thinking that the owner of the place must 
surely be a man of such refinement as in Britain, Spain, 
France or Germany would greet you. You are mistaken. 
He may be a good fellow at bottom, and very often is, but 
his courtesy, if he has any, is of the bluffest. You think at 
first he is assuming this as an exterior; but you find that 
he was born so, and, like the Ethiopian, cannot change his 
skin. Then it dawns upon you how relative a thing civiliza- 
tion is. The old lands where robber barons reared their 
strongholds upon the hills and where the people groaned for 
years under kingly rule, and which have grown chastened 
by bloodshed and sacrifice — those are the countries where also 
the true qualities of the gentleman, whether lord or peasant, 
have come to being. Only time can produce the gentle- 
man ; time, suffering and the chastening hand of Providence ; 
and these America has been largely spared at present. Apart 
from these matters the Western American is industrious and 
honest, and if less courteous he will not generally play you 
tricks like the Mexican and the Peruvian. Indeed, when 
we take into account the rude and even criminal element 



y 



160 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

which was drafted into California at the time of the gold 
excitement we shall rather be astonished that so sober a 
people have resulted. Of course the bulk of the people have 
immigrated to California of much more recent years. 

The Sunday edition of the newspapers of San Francisco, 
like those of other American cities— New York or Chicago — 
are great unwieldy periodicals, often containing as many as 
sixty full-sized pages. These pages may be divided into 
three classes : news matter, illustrated matter and advertise- 
ments. The first are the cabled and other news, political 
and industrial, home or world-wide, collected with character- 
istic enterprise, and served up in that sensational and slangy 
fashion beloved of the American pressman ; the second con- 
sists of page after page of cheaply executed and astonishing 
rubbish in the form of highly-coloured series of picture- 
\/ incidents, whimsical, burlesque, vulgar. How a nation of 
serious-minded people can tolerate this wad of rubbish every 
Sunday passes the Britisher's comprehension— for it is on 
Sunday that these great papers are mainly issued. Presum- 
ably these illustrated pages are intended for children — alas ! 
for children whose minds are nourished on such pabulum. 
As to the ordinary news matter this is often of considerable 
and varied interest, upon every conceivable topic and from 
all parts of the world; interest which, however, too often is 
sacrificed to veracity. The "scare headlines," as the headings 
of columns or paragraphs are termed, and the chopping-up 
of the columns and pages with badly-executed sketches, 
portraits of individuals and advertisements render perusal 
of the paper almost bewildering, a style which is adopted to 
draw attention but which defeats its own end. These 
American newspapers are immeasurably below the moral and 
literary standard of British periodicals, but in this sense they 
and the people probably reflect each other as a whole. These 
criticisms are not made in any ill-natured sense, and the 
facts are palpable to any observer. The American news- 
papers reflect a vast, throbbing, varied life of millions of 
people, many of whose ideas are semi-savagery ; a vast people 
in the making, whose variety and colour time will yet sort 
out into harmonious and civilized blends, for underneath it 
all is the undercurrent of Anglo-Saxon morality which, often 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 161 

in spite of, rather tlian as a result of social customs, is forcing 
its way upward. This great undercurrent the Americans 
have inherited as a British legacy — their common heritage 
in the scheme of nature, however much some of them may 
pretend to deny it. Some day all this rubbish of Sunday 
newspapers will be burnt and a cleaner literature evolved. 
As to the advertisements, especially those columns of small 
"want" advertisements, their number and variety is astonish- 
ing; ranging from the ambitious young man who asking for 
employment sets forth his own unique personal merits, to 
the quack "medium" who draws attention to his fortune- 
telling parlours or his seances. The news headings of a 
great American paper show, to the foreigner, with startling 
interest, the throbbing of the life of these new cities, more so 
than could any essay or description from the pen of the 
traveller. I will produce a few of these, torn living and 
verbatim from the pages of a Sunday number of the San 
Francisco Chronicle of this year of grace, 1909. As will be 
seen, they deal largely with lawlessness; but they are not 
selected for this reason. 

" Foils Sheriffs in two Cities " : an account of a famous 
actress and her leading man, who evade the Californian 
process-servers for old debts. "Secretly weds his House- 
keeper" : this explains itself. "Given a Week to find 
Client " : the attorneys of a man charged with felonious 
assaults on young girls are allowed some days to produce 
their "client." "Japanese object to pay Poll Tax": an 
account of the abandonment of their work by 450 Japanese 
employed upon a beet-sugar growing estate due to the 
attempt to tax them unduly. "To mark the Temperance 
Apostles' Grave " : an account of a tablet placed on the tomb 
of Murphy, a great temperance advocate, who is buried in 
Los Angeles. "Maniac causes Triple Tragedy in New 
Mexico " : a workman (with an Italian name) goes mad and 
murders his family. "Had two if not more Helpers; One of 
the Three engaged in looting the Treasury seeks Immunity " : 
account of a trial, before the Grand Jury, of some city 
officials who looted the city treasury after the earthquake in 
April 1906. "Brutal Crime is suspected when Child is found 
Dead " : an account of some suspected outrage upon a little 

M 



162 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

girl by a labourer; both of Italian name. "Makes his Son 
the Subject of a Memorial " : a father writes a book upon 
his son, who was lost in the Sierra Nevada. "Orders for 
the Army " : contains a list of army officers ordered to the 
Philippines. "Blow up Safe and wreck Building — Robbers 
loot Palm Saloon on San Bruno Road of a Large Sum — 
Eleven Shots fired by Thugs, who resent Interference with 
Work " : an exciting account of a burglary with violence at 
a country roadside inn. "Architects must have Licences": 
the decision of a Californian court to that effect. "Repairs 
for the Sherman " : an account of the repairing of a trans- 
Pacific transport for the Philippines. "Bolt of Thunder 
breaks over City " : a great thunderstorm over San Fran- 
cisco which causes people to rush out of the hotels and 
theatres. "Foil Attempt to break Jail— Three Desperate 
Prisoners at Martinez try in vain to Escape " : an account 
of three well-known criminals, post-office robbers and safe-, 
breakers, all with Anglo-Saxon names, who had been cap- 
tured red-handed. " Wagon is run down by Train — Men 
fatally injured at ' Death Curve ' " : a level-crossing acci- 
dent. "Divorced Wife may now bring another Law-suit": 
a lady recently divorced has commandeered some of her 
divorced husband's property on an order of court, and pro- 
ceeds to marry another wealthy man. "Veteran will conduct 
Funeral " : veteran soldiers of the Spanish and Philippine 
war bury a comrade in Oakland. "To sing in the Greek 
Theatre " : account of a lady singer who will give a concert 
in the Greek theatre of the University of California. "Social 
Events across the Bay " : description of the doings and 
movements of "Society" people in the pretty residential 
town adjacent to San Francisco : the small Society doings 
in which American papers delight. "Aged Men die of 
Starvation " : two men (of Anglo-Saxon name) die miser- 
ably of starvation and disease in a wretched hovel in a district 
"dotted with the houses of the wealthy and fashionable." 
"Riddles Heart with Buckshot": describes the suicide of a 
despondent sea-captain of Scandinavian name. "Plans for 
New Dock at Pear Harbour, Hawaii " : outlines a project for 
a dock in the Sandwich Islands, which are, of course, under 
the American flag, two thousand miles westward of San 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 163 

Francisco. "Railways to attack the Two-cent Law" : action 
brought by railway companies to set aside the two-cent per 
mile passenger fares in the Middle West. "Charged with 
Wire-tapping " : four men (of Anglo-Saxon and German 
names) arrested for obtaining racing news at Berkeley, in 
a room over a chemist's shop, by the method of attaching 
a wire to the telegraph line, a common and ingenious form 
of crime heavily punishable in the United States. "Thief 
robs his Fiftieth Victim : Bogus Insurance Man robs 
another Home, and Women complain " : an account of an 
ingenious thief. "Urge that Suffrage be granted to 
Women " : a Church temperance meeting at Oakland 
for that purpose. "San Rafael Women aid Boosters 
materially " : this singular announcement would not be in- 
telligible to English readers without its context, which 
describes the efforts of a local improvement or literary club. 
" Methodists to hold Exercises " : the laying of a corner-stone 
by this religious body in Berkeley. "New Reading of 
Divorce Laws"; "Ex-Convict tells about Projected Bank 
Robbery"; "Splendid Spring Display of Fashions and 
Fabrics"; "More Restrictions for Building Contractors," 
are other headings upon these corresponding subjects; and 
then we come to a page devoted to motor-cars and accounts 
of their trips through the sierra and over the American 
deserts. "Counterfeiters are sentenced"; "Court decides 
Walker is not Bankrupt"; "Tree-planting at Glen Park"; 
"Irrigation Case compromised," are other items which tell 
their own tale. Then comes a page of foreign news, of which 
the headings are as follows: "Awaiting Heir to Dutch 
Throne"; "Foreigners kept under Watch in Germany"; 
"No need for Policeman in English Village"; "King Edward 
a Nervous Wreck " : a stupid story about His Majesty's 
health. "Beautiful Girl who has just come out " : an account 
of an English debutante. "British Naval Crisis — Britons in 
Alarm at German Peril cry for more Ships." "Duchess of 
Aosta to give Roosevelt Tips"; "No Limit on New York 
Sky-scrapers," and so forth ad infinitum, ad nauseam. 
Accounts of prize-fighters, "Society " people, summer resorts, 
racing news, travel articles on other countries; enormous 
advertisements, all profusely illustrated with prints, and 

M 2 



164 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

pages of small advertisements make up the mighty total. 
It is related of a man who was camping out in the wilds of 
Arizona that he complained of having lost his blanket, and 
the night was chilly. "Never mind," his companion 
remarked facetiously, "I have got a copy of the New York 
Herald here, and you can use it for a bed ! " I do not know 
whether this was meant to illustrate only the size of that 
enterprising periodical or the "warmth" of its contents in 
addition ! All the foregoing items are taken from a single 
Sunday edition of the San Francisco Chronicle and may be 
taken as typical of the news in that and other American 
papers; and the reader must, of course, apply the reservation 
to them which he would apply in less degree to the Press of 
other countries. I have not selected these items, but taken 
them as they came without any desire beyond that of draw- 
ing a picture of California as depicted by its own Press, and 
I give them as affording a racial and physiological study of 
the people. 

The Californians are, indeed, drawn from all the white 
\/ nations of Europe and from all the states of their own 
Union ; and they are being continually augmented and 
modified from the outside, like all other of the peoples of the 
Great Pacific Coast. But their general character suggests 
their British origin ; and, indeed, in some parts of the 
country, especially in the beautiful fruit-growing towns, 
there are numbers of British settlers, often men of means 
and education, who have taken root and, as ever, brought 
their customs and atmosphere with them. The Irish are 
much in evidence in California, and this is mainly the cause 
of the anti-British feeling which from time to time breaks 
out in the San Francisco Press. Indeed, it is remarkable 
how strong anti-British sentiment is among the Irish- 
Americans in the United States. Wherever an Irish- 
American is encountered there is an unreasoning enemy for 
England; and in Chicago and other places Britain is invaded 
and humbled with frequency at their meetings. Personally 
I think there is much foundation, or there has been in past 
history, for this sentiment. But most of these agitators 
know little of history — they are generally indulging a blind 
resentn>ent. Many of them are wealthy ; have they done 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 165 

anything to better the conditions of their poor countrymen 
in Ireland beyond that useless one of subscribing to funds 
to stir up political strife ? 

I have referred elsewhere to the matter of Spanish in- 
fluence and nomenclature in California, and Mexico and the 
Mexicans have taken a prominent part in Californian history. 
In earlier years race-hatred and rivalry between the Americans 
and the Mexicans was exceedingly marked, and can only be 
said to have died down in this century. Feuds, lynchings, 
robberies on the border and in the mountains of California 
were of everyday occurrence. The Spanish-Mexicans in- 
habiting California were of two classes. The first were the 
holders and owners of the great landed estates, or ranches, 
which they held from the Mexican Government before the 
American occupation of California, and these were men of a 
high class, who accepted American political control with a 
good grace, and were a valuable element in the country. 
The other class, however, included a vast, mixed horde of 
uneducated Mexicans whose instincts were generally criminal. 
The roads and trails in California were unsafe by reason of 
this element; murder and robbery were rife; the dance 
houses and "dives " they maintained in the towns and villages 
were hotbeds of crime and vice, and the mining camps 
during the latter half of the last century were refuges for pre- 
datory rascals fleeing from justice. These did not include 
Mexicans alone, however : they were drawn from every 
nation under the sun, and the real typical "bad man" of the 
West more generally than otherwise bore an Anglo-Saxon 
name, as does the cool and enterprising train-robber of to- 
day. Up to the year 1856 there existed in the small sierra 
town of Jackson, upon its main street, a famous oak which 
became a favourite gallows for the stringing up of thieves 
and murderers of that part of the country at that time. Nine 
malefactors, judged and executed by lynch law, had hung 
from its branches, and of these five were Mexicans and four 
of other races — a grim, cosmopolitan gathering typical of 
the time and place. Of the outrages perpetrated upon lonely 
ranches and Chinese miners by gangs of Mexican outlaws 
in those days a chapter might be filled. Accounts have been 
kept of the lynchings in 1851 and 1852, giving a total of 



166 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

151 men executed by this method, ninety-seven of which 
were "Greasers," as the American terms the lower-class 
Mexicans. The following account, taken from a San Fran- 
cisco paper, describing the doings in those early days of 
the fifties and sixties shows eloquently the condition of the 
country at that time, and the measures taken in self-pro- 
tection for the expulsion of the criminal element among the 
Mexicans. 

"In August 1855 the foothills blazed with excitement over 
a dastardly outrage perpetrated by a gang of Mexican out- 
laws at the little town of Rancheria, in Amador county. It 
was a small mining camp on Dry Creek, between Drytown 
and Fiddletown, containing an hotel, saloon and a number of 
miners' cabins, and with a population perhaps of a couple of 
hundred. Needless to remark that no trace of its existence 
remains to-day ; blotted out like a thousand other ephemeral 
placer camps. For a week previous it had been known that 
a party of desperadoes was systematically robbing all the 
Chinese camps on Dry and Willow Creeks, having levied 
tribute on more than fifty of these places, murdering at least 
a dozen Chinese and cleaning up in its operation in the 
neighbourhood of $25,000. 

"A number of strange Mexicans had been noticed at a 
fandango house at Drytown, and, surmising that the 
strangers were a portion of the band, it was determined to 
arrest them. A couple of local officers proceeded to the 
premises, but the game, suspicious or forewarned, escaped 
by the back door and took to the hills, followed by a fusillade 
of pistol-shots, none of which took effect. 

"There were nine of them, headed by their leader, Guada- 
loupe Gamba, who took up the trail for Rancheria, where 
they arrived on foot about nine o'clock. There the party 
divided, five of them entering the hotel, where they at once 
opened fire on two men that were in the office, killing them 
instantly. The landlord came in from a back room at this 
juncture, and as soon as he opened the door he was shot 
down and left for dead. One of the fiends, Rafael Escobar, 
went into the sitting-room, where the landlady, half dead 
from fright, was listening to the noise of the fracas. She fell 
on her knees and begged for her life, but without avail ; for 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 167 

as her voice was raised in pleading tones he deliberately shot 
her in the breast, and, as she lay gasping her life's breath 
away, picked her up and threw her out of the window, where 
she afterwards was found lifeless. 

"In the meantime, the other party of four went into the 
store, killed the storekeeper and two customers, rifled the safe 
and joined their comrades, who had robbed the hotel of all 
available plunder. The villains were on foot when they came 
to the town, but found enough horses to mount the gang, 
and, at the conclusion of the tragedy, mounted and fled from 
the scene. As they left the camp they met a lone Indian on 
the trail, and from pure wantonness killed him — an act that 
cost the Greasers half-a-dozen lives, for the next day the 
members of the tribe rounded up that number along the 
creek, and, imitating the white man, took their victims upon 
the ridge and hanged them to a branching oak. 

"That same night the dead red man was cremated close 
by with the usual funeral ceremonies of the Digger tribe, 
and it was a most unique and ghastly picture. The old 
squaws, with dishevelled hair and tar-besmeared faces, circled 
the pyre chanting a funeral dirge; the bucks sat around in 
stolid silence, while the bodies of the Mexicans swayed in the 
breeze, the fitful flames now lighting up their horribly con- 
torted faces as they twisted into the firelight, and again 
plunging them into shadow as they swung in the darkness. 
It was a scene from Inferno — a chamber of horrors, enclosed 
in the gloom of night. 

"Alarmed by the reports of the pistol-shots, the outlying 
miners soon gathered in the camp, and took immediate 
measures to pursue and apprehend the assassins. Runners 
conveying the news were dispatched to Fiddletown, Dry- 
town, Sutter Creek and Jackson. The sheriff and deputies 
organized half-a-dozen posses, who were sent out to trail in 
as many different directions; the country was aroused, and 
the people on the look-out in all sections. The foothills went 
wild with all sorts of rumours. Indignation meetings were 
held, and at each it was resolved to expel this class of popula- 
tion, men, women and children, guilty or innocent, outside 
the borders of Amador county. The excitement spread to 
Calaveras county, where similar resolutions were adopted, 



168 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

and many fiery spirits counselled immediate and drastic 
action. 

"Then it began to be whispered around that the slaughter 
at Rancheria was but the beginning of a concerted outbreak 
— the initial act in a deep-laid plot, which meant an uprising 
of the Mexicans, a culmination of the race-hatred that un- 
doubtedly existed. While to the cooler heads this was 
regarded as improbable; still in numbers the Mexicans were 
formidable, and there might be a grain of truth in it. It was 
even reported that three hundred armed Mexicans from their 
camp near Jackson were marching on Sutter Creek with the 
intention of massacring the Americans, and the inhabitants 
in that place gathered the women and children for safety into 
the stone stores, while, armed to the best of their resources, 
they patrolled the roads and streets until daylight. Similar 
preparation for defence was made at Jackson and Drytown, 
and Calaveras county was up in arms. 

"About fifty Greasers had been arrested and confined on 
suspicion, hangers-on at fandango houses and bad characters. 
Three of them, known desperadoes, were lynched at Dry- 
town, and three more, who had been overtaken by one of the 
posses at Campo Seco, met a similar fate. One, who had 
made his way to Texas Bar, was discovered in front of a 
dance-house with a revolver in each hand, and he began 
blazing away as soon as the pursuing party came into sight, 
one of the members of which he wounded badly before he 
was shot down. He was not killed, and was taken over to 
Jackson, and before his death, which was hastened by a rope 
over the famous hangman's tree, confessed, and gave the 
names of his confederates. This fellow% Manuel Castro, gave 
information of the existence of a band, recruited by Guada- 
loupe, numbering fifty, with the avowed object of emulating 
Murietta and stirring up the Mexican element to a revolution. 
The money secured by robbing the Chinese was to be devoted 
to the purchase of horses, arms and equipment. A sudden 
concerted attack was to be made upon Jackson, the town 
plundered and every one killed who stood in their way. This 
was to be followed up by swift attacks upon other towns, 
and if the forays were successful it was believed that a 
majority of the Mexicans would join in the movement. 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 169 

Castro also asserted that the plot was generally known among 
the Greasers and that a majority was heartily in favour of 
it. The confession added fuel to the flames, and the deter- 
mination was intensified to clean the undesirable element 
out of the country. At F'iddletown, Drytown and Sutter 
Creek the fandango houses and resorts of the Greasers were 
sacked and destroyed and the Mexicans given a stern 
warning to leave. In the vicinity of Jackson there was a 
camp of about three hundred, and this was visited by a 
mob of white men who, after arresting a dozen of the worst 
of the lot, known horse-thieves and suspected murderers, 
set fire to the shanties and scattered the inhabitants to the 
four winds. 

" It was always a semi-mystery as to the fate of the dozen 
desperadoes. They were tied together with ropes and, 
guarded by a party of forty men, marched out into the dark- 
ness in the direction of Butte Basin. The escort returned 
in the morning and reported that the Greasers had been sent 
across the Mokelumne River into Calaveras county. The 
statement was only partially true, as not more than half of 
them floated over and lodged on the bars on that side of the 
stream. The fact was that they had been taken to a bluff 
overhanging the river, there shot to death and the bodies 
thrown over the precipice into the stream one thousand five 
hundred feet below. It was a grim tragedy, but it passed 
uncriticized and uncondemned. In the meantime the roads 
and trails were crowded with flying fugitives, men, women 
and children, and they did not halt until they reached 
the Stanislaus River. At least one thousand sought 
safety in Sonoratown, and many passed on into Bear Valley, 
in Mariposa county. Amador county was practically 
free of them, and the hegira from Calaveras was nearly as 
great. 

"Notwithstanding the number of lives that had been taken, 
six of the villains were still at large, and the sheriff of Amador 
county, with a posse, was hot on their trail. Rafael Escoba, 
who killed the woman, was caught at Campo Seco, brought 
over to Jackson, and preparations were made to burn him 
alive; indeed, the miners went so far as to prepare a pile of 
cordwood on the main street for the pyre, but wiser counsels 



170 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

prevailed and instead he was hanged, the fatal oak tree 
claiming another victim. 

"Two more were found and identified at Carson Creek and 
sent back to Jackson for trial, but they never reached that 
town. As the leader of the guard remarked, ' What was the 
use of taking the trouble to bring them back to where they 
were sure to be lynched when any of the trees along the 
road offered just as good facilities?' which seemed to the 
members of the guard a very sensible proposition, so they 
halted on a little flat at the crossing of San Domingo Creek 
and relieved themselves of any further responsibility in the 
matter by stringing the couple up and leaving them for 
crow bait. This left three of the original gang, and news 
was brought to the sheriff that they were hidden at Chinese 
Camp, in Tuolumne county, a mining town a few miles from 
Sonora. Here they were found located in a tent on the hill- 
side, which the party surrounded and ordered the desperadoes 
to come out and deliver themselves to the posse. For answer 
they fired a volley into the pursuing party, instantly killing 
the sheriff and wounding two others. Then one of the 
besiegers set fire to the tent and shot dead the first two 
that ran out of the opening. The last to appear was the 
arch villain, the leader, Guadaloupe Gamba, and as he came 
in sight, six-shooter in hand, he turned the pistol to his 
head and blew out his own brains. Swift vengeance had met 
the band, that is, the original nine who participated in the 
bloody murders at Rancheria. In less than a week they had 
been exterminated off the face of the earth. An exhibition 
of popular wrath occurred that night at Sonora, where a mob 
razed a portion of Greasertown and incidentally lynched 
three bad Mexicans. This ended the campaign, and the 
excitement soon died away, although for months afterward 
rumours would be circulated of contemplated Mexican forays, 
which, however, proved to be false alarms. The refugees 
returned gradually to their old haunts, the fandango houses 
were rebuilt and continued in operation until the exhaustion 
of the placers and the wane of flush times made them no 
longer profitable." 

Thus we have a glimpse, from actual fact, of what Cali- 
fornia was in the time of men living now ; and an example. 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 171 

contrasting it with the CaHfornia of to-day, of how rapidly 
social conditions have changed upon the Great Pacific Coast. 
Incidentally the above account serves to show the style of 
writing of the San Francisco Press of to-day and "United 
States " as it is spoken and written in that enterprising 
country. 

California is, of course, entirely different to-day, but never- 
theless, the form of American "argument," the revolver and 
the shot-gun, are still much in evidence. This is generally 
a "sawed-off" shot-gun, as it is termed: the barrels being 
generally cut off short for convenience in handling at short 
range ; and this effective weapon, heavily loaded, is seen in 
the hands of "Wells Fargo" and other "Express" agents, 
as they mount or descend the box of the stage-coaches which 
meet the trains at wayside railway stations, the arms being 
necessary against the depredation of robbers. For California 
and western North America generally still retains some of 
that savage indifference to "mine and thine" and to the 
value of human life which it has inherited from the despera- 
does who thronged it in the early days. The oath and the 
revolver are much in evidence still, and the bank-robber 
and train-dynamiter still carry on their depredations in the 
midst of a growing civilization. The sheriff's "posse" and 
the law of lynch are both much in evidence as offsets to that 
cool-blooded crime which has become synonymous with the 
"wild and woolly West," and with the character of the 
Western American above all other races of mankind. Texas, 
Arizona, California — all partake of this singular phase of the 
white man's vices, and it must be long before the taint is 
lost. The "holding-up" of banks, stage-coaches and pas- 
senger trains is a form of robbery which seems to have 
appealed with singular force to the Western American thief. 
Men of this stamp will not hesitate to blow up a bridge so as 
to throw a train into a river in order to rob the "express" 
car, as the van devoted to the carrying of mail and valuables 
is termed in America; nor to murder the "express" mes- 
senger, or man in charge, by riddling him with shot if he 
refuses to yield to their demands. The method of these 
desperadoes, and it is of constant occurrence, is more or 
less as follows : one or more of their number conceals him- 



172 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

self somewhere on the train or locomotive, and at a precon- 
certed place starts out, and, covering the engine-driver 
with a revolver, commands him to pull up. The mechanic 
has generally little choice but to obey, and the train is 
brought to a standstill, when the malefactor's associates — 
who may be only two or three in number — approach the 
train with drawn weapons and go through it, causing the 
passengers to give up their money and valuables. A sack 
is generally held open and carried along through the train 
by one of the robbers, whilst another "covers" the occu- 
pants of the car from the door — it is to be remembered that 
the American railway car is not divided into compartments, 
like the European — and in this way the passengers are terror- 
ized and easily disgorge their property. They do not seem to 
show fight much : possibly they consider it would be use- 
less, and the desperadoes, masters of the situation, would not 
hesitate to fire and murder any one who opposed them. 
Nevertheless, I do not think such scenes would be possible 
of repetition in a community of British people. Indeed, 
these outrages do not occur in British Western America, 
such as British Columbia. It is, in fact, characteristic of 
Americans that they have a less strong sense of in- 
dividual rights than an Englishman or Scotchman : less 
public spirit. An American never "writes to the Times ^^ 
to protest against this or that abuse, and " Pro bono 
publico" and "Paterfamilias" are almost unknown. Per- 
haps, however, the train-robbers have turned their atten- 
tions to the express car and commanded the messenger to 
come out ; for he may have barred the door of the strongly- 
constructed vehicle. If he refuses the robbers detach the 
car and engine and run them a mile or so down the line, put 
dynamite underneath the car and blow it up ; helping them- 
selves to the money and valuables it contains, and then 
making off into the open country. Whilst, as stated, the 
passengers do not often resist, this is not generally the case 
with the train attendants, who at times make a gallant resist- 
ance. It is a common thing for the train conductor to seize 
a Winchester rifle and pick off the robbers at the express 
car if they relax their vigilance for a moment, whilst brave 
express messengers have often showed such effective fight 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 173 

that the tables have been turned on the thieves, who have 
been shot down or put to flight. It is to be remembered 
that these acts take place in some wild lonely region 
generally, and escape is easy. Nevertheless, the next act is 
that performed by the sheriff and his "posse," who, warned 
at the next station, scour the country to arrest or wipe out 
the gang. In some parts of Western America the sheriff 
is a very busy individual indeed; carries his life in his hand, 
and has generally been elected to the post — for it is a political 
position — for his qualities of coolness and bravery. The 
last act is in the courthouse of that particular county and 
the desultory law against the captured criminals; for the arm 
of justice in America, judged by British standards, is tardy. 
The train upon which I was journeying on one occasion was 
"held up" by robbers in the night, but they had reckoned 
without their host, for there happened to be a doughty 
sheriff and some of his men in the smoking-car, and two of 
the desperadoes were shot down in the act, before the 
passengers were molested. 

Whilst it is not to be supposed that any particular danger 
of this nature attends the traveller in Western America 
generally, there is nevertheless always the picturesque possi- 
bility. Incidents of travel upon these vast transcontinental 
routes of railway lines are full of peculiar interest. We may 
take our stand on the back platform of the Pullman car and 
observe unhindered the line and its surrounding landscape 
as it unfolds behind us as the train speeds along. Mile 
after mile, day after day, of arid plain, where the line, laid 
in long "tangents," stretches behind us without a curve to 
where it is lost on the horizon ; or again, we are passing 
through a maze of tangled forest and swamp where the hoarse 
puffing of the locomotive resounds back in short echoes from 
the narrow clearing along the track. Further, perhaps, we 
cross a range of hills and the long tangent gives place to 
curves of short radius and steep inclines aroiind and up 
which the train groans and the locomotive pants in eloquent 
expression of the energy it is employing to overcome the 
obstacles in its way. Presently there is a sonorous blast 
from the engine's whistle, and the train comes to a halt at 
some small wayside station, surrounded by hills in such a 



174 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

way that it seems impossible the line can proceed further or 
get out of the enclosed valley. Especially is this the case 
on approaching the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra 
Nevadas; and, indeed, the skill of the civil engineer is no- 
where better displayed than in the tunnels, loops, viaducts 
and spirals of these difficult regions. Running along the 
bottom of deep caiions, on a narrow track sculptured in the 
rocky wall, the line emerges to cross a giddy viaduct over a 
ravine of appalling depth, the structure trembling as the 
train passes over it, and plunging into the depth of a tunnel 
beneath a fir-crowned hill emerges thence to twist and climb 
around steep slopes, where from the gained altitude the 
vast horizon unfolds to our eyes as, fascinated, we hang on 
to the back rail of the Pullman platform. Again the scene 
changes. Smiling plains unfold, with a wealth of cattle 
and planted corn, and the habitations of man. The bell on 
the locomotive begins the incessant clanging which denotes 
approach to a town, and soon we are flying over the level- 
crossings of streets, and enter among the smoky chimneys 
and high buildings of some great city emporium of the 
Western world. 

Just as in Spanish- America the traveller is inevitably 
thrown into an atmosphere of mules and mule-drivers, so in 
Anglo-America he dwells in one of trains and trainmen. 
There is a vast difference between the two conditions — differ- 
ences of race and temperament as well. The Mexican or 
Peruvian arrierOy or mule-driver, is courteous, picturesque, 
slow and dirty, yet capable in his way; the American train- 
man, conductor and brakesman are brisk, brusque, often 
offensive, rarely courteous, but capable and indispensable 
also. They represent the very antithesis of means of loco- 
motion upon that vast sunset coast. However, even the 
American train-conductor is interesting at times, and often 
proves a good fellow. The first impulse of the American is 
to show you, whether you are an American or a foreigner, 
that he is as good as you — possibly better, in his own estima- 
tion : a trait born doubtless at the moment of throwing 
overboard the Boston tea-chests. As soon, therefore, as the 
tea-chests have been satisfactorily disposed of again he may 
reveal some agreeable and possibly gentlemanly manners; 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 175 

and as for the English traveller there, he will recollect for 
his part that good-fellowship is better than starchiness and 
kind hearts more than coronets. 

The developing civilization of California is shown in the 
strange anomalies encountered in her country villages. 
Rude pioneer habits and methods in some places go hand in 
hand with the amenities of struggling "Society" tendencies, 
with women generally as the cause of these tentacles of civil- 
ization being put forth. It is in the more unsettled parts of 
the world, perhaps, kind reader, that the fact is borne upon 
us that without woman man might develop into a savage. 
So it is in California. The rude train brakesman or the 
village blacksmith doffs his careless attire of labour and at 
holiday times dresses himself in a "smart rig-out" for visit 
or function where women will be present; forgets his 
brusqueness and his oaths, all of which matters are useful 
for him. In one remote little town in the region where I 
was camping there was a literary society, and the ladies of 
the place played, sang and recited; the village blacksmith 
proved his knowledge of Byron or Longfellow by a quota- 
tion — as was the rule when names were called, whilst the 
local "express agent" shone in amateur theatricals. Thus 
does the inevitable tendency of the Anglo-Saxon race towards 
betterment show forth, and the equally strong belief in 
equality of the American assert itself. There is no reason 
why a blacksmith or trainman or any one else of manual 
employment should not assert himself in higher things; and 
it is a fortunate condition of the Anglo-Saxon world — Cali- 
fornia or British Columbia — on the Great Pacific Coast, that 
it is a new world where the actual doing of things with 
hands as well as brains is not despised, or is not yet despised. 

One of the most marked features of American life, and 
California does not escape it, is the wrong-doing constantly 
exposed in the newspapers, of business corporations and 
"trusts." Embezzlement by officers of companies, oppressive 
measures of combines, and upper-class extravagance such as 
in Britain are never witnessed — social sins such as the noble 
fathers of their country, from Washington downwards, would 
have wept to see. I will quote from the newspapers of this 
current year, so that these may not seem to be generalities 



176 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

aroused by any sense of unkind criticism. Here is a 
paragraph dealing with the affairs of a New York "Ice 
King "— 

" It was an extraordinary account which the ' Ice King ' 
gave of how his millions melted in the panic like summer 
snow. When questioned by the official receiver of New 
York regarding his vast holdings in scores of wealthy cor- 
porations, of which he was the controlling spirit two years 
ago, all the convict could reply was that his shares were 
pledged with his creditors. Just prior to the financial panic 
of 1907 he had boasted he was worth four and a half million 
pounds. To-day he is penniless and in debt, in the Tombs 
Prison ; the man whose downfall caused the greatest financial 
upheaval of recent times." 

The " Ice King " thus laid by the heels, along comes the 
"Copper King" as follows — 

"The American ' Copper King,' who was involved in the 
financial panic of 1907, was arraigned^ at New York on a 
new indictment charging him with the misappropriation of 
^'450,000 belonging to the Mercantile National Bank, of 
which he was President." 

The "Petroleum King" escaped any very pressing 
engagements with his country's magistrates, but some very 
unkind things were said about him and his particular king- 
dom as follows — 

"The Standard Oil is reaching out with the broad and 
greasy hand of boodle to control the newspapers, the law- 
making bodies of the states and the nation, and the judiciary 
and executive authorities. It is a mighty engine for govern- 
mental corruption to the end of placing the people under 
still greater tribute. Is it possible that such work can escape 
the day of reckoning at the hands of an outraged and 
plundered nation ? " Such are the words of one of the lead- 
ing newspapers of New England of recent date. 

California possesses numerous fine public institutions, 
and education may be considered on a good footing. The 
splendid Universities of California, at Berkeley and that 
of Leland Stanford at Palo Acto are famous centres of 
learning, whose schools are open to persons of both sexes. 

^ April, 1909. 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 177 

These institutions enjoy endowments of many millions of 
dollars. Also, the people of California have seen the 
advantages of education, and do not complain of taxation 
to secure it; and the best buildings in the country towns are 
the schools. There are four normal schools; high schools 
are found in the towns and cities and in some of the villages, 
providing secondary education ; while ample state pro- 
vision is made for the rural schools throughout the country. 
There are numerous well-known scientific, philanthropic and 
charitable institutions in the state. The great mineral 
industry has its museum in the California State Mining 
Bureau; and technical and geographical societies further the 
work of scientific research in other fields. Enormous hotels 
and blocks of offices are a feature of San Francisco and 
other cities; and beautiful private houses are innumerable, 
whether in town or country. The prisons and penitentiaries 
of the American state are generally of a highly organized 
character, and indeed the criminal is well looked after — 
perhaps too well for his discouragement ! The lax administra- 
tion of criminal law is one of California's defects, as indeed 
it is throughout the United States generally. As to religion 
there are numerous denominations at work — principally 
Protestant, of course. It is stated that Californian churches 
are as well attended as those of the older states. It may be 
said the whole machinery of political and social life is com- 
plete, and with the lapse of time it may be expected to 
produce citizens of the highest type. 

The great bay of San Francisco is the dominating hydro- 
graphical feature of California. This vast tidal reservoir, 
with its narrow outlet to the Pacific Ocean, has an area of 
seventy-nine square miles of water of a three-fathom depth 
limit, and is entirely land-locked save for the Golden Gate 
outlet. Its geographico-commercial position is of extreme 
importance, lying as it does upon what may be described as 
the great trade route or "axial line " of the world's commerce, 
a condition shared by its sister port of Vancouver in British 
Columbia, to the north. Upon the waters of this Californian 
Mediterranean the flags of all the merchant ships of the world 
are reflected : dominant among them the red ensign of Britain. 
Towards this splendid concealed harbour all the rich grow- 

N 



178 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

ing traffic of the elliptical-shaped Californian Central Valley 
gravitates; and from the awakening western East— the Orient 
of "yellow peril" and growing commerce — come navies as 
towards a natural portal. During my sojourn in San 
Francisco it was a regular distraction of mine to walk along 
its numerous quays. Here were great steel, four-masted, 
modern sailing vessels, beautiful types of ships, from New- 
castle with coals, or other British ports with varied merchan- 
dise, which had winged their way adown the great Southern 
Atlantic, doubled the stormy Cape Horn, lingered in Chilean 
and Peruvian ports, or beaten far out into the great South 
Pacific Sea to gain their motive-power — the wind, but with 
their prows and their masters' hopes both towards the Golden 
Gate — fifteen thousand miles of a wind-blown voyage from 
Britain, with their skippers boasting of the swift passage out 
from home. Here were short, stout-looking Scandinavian 
barks, with Danish or Swedish ensigns at their peaks, and 
Italian ships with elegant figureheads, and steamers with 
funnels marked with various devices representing the great 
"tramp" army of ocean-buffeters of all the maritime nations 
of the world. And here lay the Tropic Bird, a famous little 
schooner from Tahiti, and other craft from other far-off 
Pacific isles of the West. Along the quays the scent of 
coffee, from the woven grass packages lying there, filled the 
air, and at the gangways of every departing steamer for the 
Orient sleek-looking Chinamen jingled great strings of 
American and Mexican dollars, eager for usurious exchange 
with their outgoing countrymen. The great mail steamers 
to Panama, to Australia, to Hong-Kong, lay like leviathans 
afloat; and beyond them the low, frowning iron walls and 
turrets of California's coast-defence vessels, built in the 
harbour works. 

San Francisco, built on the promontory which forms the 
southern side of the Golden Gate, rises upwards upon its 
street-crossed hills. High and handsome it arose (and high 
and handsome it is arising again), but in April 1906 a wave 
of earth-unrest, a spasm of Mother Nature's bowels, such as 
she suffers from at intervals throughout the ages, passed 
under San Francisco, and its proud towers toppled, its build- 
ings fell, and its streets were crumpled up — 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 179 

" My dream is of a city of the West 

Built with fair colours ; still and sad as flowers 
That wear the blazon of the autumn hours : 
Set by the side of some wild wave's unrest." 

For in a short terrible period that splendid work of man, 
its houses, office buildings, great Palace Hotel (boasted the 
largest in the world), its fine new sky-scrapers (one of which 
I had a hand in building), its churches (what few there were), 
its drinking and gambling dens, its underground dens of 
vice — "the dives" (exceedingly ntimerous), its Chinese lottery 
and Chinese quarter, with forty thousand Celestials, its streets 
of legalized prostitutes — in a word, all its varied and extensive 
community was levelled with the dust or burnt with fire. 
They say the top storeys of the high office sky-scrapers (in 
some of which I have spent many days) swung like ham- 
mocks ! Imagine yourself, kind reader, pursuing your 
peaceful avocation in your office two or three hundred 
feet from the ground when, before you know what is happen- 
ing, you and your office are describing an arc against the 
sky ! I can imagine it, for I was once thrown out of bed 
by an earthquake shock in a San Francisco hotel, and I 
seemed, as I looked out of the window, to see an unstable 
world before my eyes. 

The San Francisco earthquake and its cause and effects 
were scientifically inquired into by a commission appointed 
for the purpose, and a study was made of the "earthquake 
crack," which covered a range of territory three hundred 
miles in length. It was, of course, known that the earth- 
quake was of a tectonic nature (the releasing of strain in 
strata; or its settlement), and not of a volcanic nature. What 
took place was a lateral shift of the strata and the ground, 
and the soil and rocks in many places were found sheared 
and fissured, as indeed were streets and railways. The 
position of San Francisco invited such a catastrophe — not 
the first, nor is it likely to be the last — for a series of parallel 
faults or lines of rock-dislocation run through the coast 
range of California near the shore ; three faults in the 
cretaceous sandstones. Yet it is stated that only ten per cent, 
of the damage to the city was due to the earthquake, the rest 
being due to fire consequent upon the water mains having 
been sheared by the fault. The steel buildings showed 

N 2 



180 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

marked stability under the shock. Nevertheless, it was the 
earthquake that caused the most serious part of the catastrophe 
— the loss of life. 

The Great Pacific Coast is a vast, long, menacing zone for 
the people who inhabit it : menacing from its frequency to 
earthquake shocks. The terrible earthquake of San Fran- 
cisco in 1906 was almost equalled by the similar catastrophe in 
Valparaiso, 8000 miles to the south, at the same period; and 
in earlier years, by the destruction caused in Mexico, Lima 
Callao, Arequipa and other cities of the Great Pacific littoral. 
So long as man will persist in building himself structures of 
brick and stone, exaggerated in size beyond his real require- 
ments, in this or any other danger zone, so long will he 
suffer. The people of San Francisco, full of energy and 
hope, are building up their city as fast as possible, and it is 
marvellously fast, but whether they are fools or wise men 
in so doing is open to question. The same calamity might 
occur again to-morrow. There is no radical departure in the 
type of construction employed in the beautiful new buildings 
which are rising up, or have already risen. Man's habita- 
tions, if they are not to go down before the forces of nature, 
must be of a more modest type in such regions, for the earth 
will not have these great structures, and, it is to be feared, 
will shake them off again. 

Moreover, it is impossible to refrain from drawing a moral 
from the destruction of San Francisco. The "sky-scrapers" 
of this and other American cities are greedy structures in 
the many cells of which the human ant is hatching the eggs 
of his too often nefarious plans ; and San Francisco has 
markedly the attributes of a modern Babylonian city. Whilst 
giving the Americans their due as a civilized and marvellously 
progressive people, the historian has to point to years of 
cynical robbery of the public funds by those officers to whose 
care they were entrusted; years of bribed justice in politically- 
controlled law courts, years of saloon-mongering and of vice 
and murder among the lower orders. The political and 
financial element are corrupt: "they have done abominable 
things; their right hands are full of bribes," as the psalmist 
says. The misery and dishonesty in American cities is worse 
than in the cities of Europe, whose vices they have not only 



THE PEOPLE OF CALIFORNIA 181 

inherited but exaggerated. No student of social evolution 
but will believe that this is a passing phase which must some 
day give place to nobler ideals. We cannot but believe that 
the selfish millionaire will learn that his riches are but held 
in trust; that the corrupt politician will grow to abhor his 
ways, and that an era of real civilization will be the outcome 
of the strenuous life of this splendid stiff-necked people. 



VIII 

THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT 

The desert ! What shall we say of the desert ? There are 
two points of view from which we may behold it, and they 
depend largely upon our mood of the moment, and our 
general frame of mind, brought about by our experience 
of man and knowledge of Nature. At times we do "love 
man the less and Nature more, from these our interviews," 
and from our knowledge of both : so that in the desert we 
may at times be glad, at others regretful to see his habitations 
there. For not the least of the values of the desert is its 
contrast-value. Who has not surveyed the wilderness and 
rejoiced he saw no human habitation there ! From the high 
rim of some rocky amphitheatre who has not looked down 
and marked cliff and foothill, and sandy sea stretching away 
into the glimmering haze, untenanted of organic life except 
for those primitive forms, the cactus and the coyote, and 
has not felt glad that no towns are climbing up the slopes, 
swelling upwards in insidious rows as towns in every land 
crawl up the slopes and float along their fertile bases? The 
great high barren plateaux and the sterile wastes, harsh and 
cruel or soft and beautiful, according to the angle of the 
sun upon them, will always have their value as realms of 
solitude and thought. They are mighty temples far with- 
drawn, for those who, of the world perforce, decline to be 
always or wholly of it. So the desert has its beauty and 
uses, both of which it is the traveller's innate tendency to 
look for, whether he is conscious of it or not : for as true 
travellers we are universalists, to us everything in nature has 
some plan and value, which even if not easily manifest are 
there nevertheless. 

Having permitted ourselves this digression, kind reader, 
let us turn from this frame of mind and consider the desert 

182 



THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT 183 

as an asset for us — its practical and industrial uses ; and so 
inevitably, being men, to lend ourselves to erecting those 
swelling rows of houses which a moment since we had con- 
demned. For despite them we must recollect that deserts 
alone produce savages, whilst cities produce civilization. To 
the conquest of the desert we shall inevitably put our hands; 
and its conquest in the regions tributary to the Great Pacific 
Coast is a great and palpable matter for man. 

The great stretches of desert adjacent to the regions tribu- 
tary to the Pacific Ocean are very marked in the southern 
part of Western North America. Beyond the Sierra Nevada 
of California, between these and the Rocky IMountains and 
extending southwards upon the Colorado River and across 
Arizona and Mexico, is a great wilderness. The states of 
Nevada, Utah, New Mexico also form part of the huge terri- 
tory of arid Western America, at one time known as the 
"Great American Desert." The things which Nature has 
done here and which man is doing in the conquest of this 
singular region are almost unique. The works of reclama- 
tion being performed in these deserts prove the people of 
Western America worthy beirgs of intelligence and adapt- 
ability. Yet, strange to say, some of these things were done 
before, how long ago and by whom no one knows. For 
the mysterious peoples who cultivated the plains of Arizona 
and irrigated them with the great canals which they dug 
and banked, and who built towns and great houses which 
excite the interest and admiration of the Americanist and 
archaeologist of to-day — seeking always for the origin of man 
in the New World — did but do in those unknown ages what 
the settlers of the twentieth century are doing again. 

A great part of this huge region — double the area of Great 
Britain and Ireland — is drained by the Colorado River, 
known among other matters for its famous "Grand Caiion " 
in Arizona. This river, rising in the mountains of the state 
of Wyoming on the Green River — runs for eight hundred 
miles to its confluence with the Grand River, which flows 
from the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and flows thence 
south-west through Arizona. Turning then to the south, it 
forms the boundary between Arizona and California, and 
passes into the territory of the republic of Mexico near 



184 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Yuma, emptying into the Gulf of California, whose waters 
are of the Pacific Ocean— i, 080 miles from the confluence 
of the two main tributaries. The famous caiions of the 
Colorado have no parallel anywhere upon the earth. The 
Grand Canon is a very complicated system of mountain 
gorges, and its scenic character is, of its peculiar kind, the 
most magnificent in the world. This famous canon is two 
hundred miles in length, with a greatest depth of six thou- 
sand feet, whilst its width, from wall to wall, ranges from 
eight to ten miles. 

The Colorado River resembles the Nile in some respects, 
and the Euphrates in others. It overflows its banks with 
nourishing floods in the first instance, whilst the formation 
of its mouth at the head of the Gulf of California is analogous 
to that of the delta of the Euphrates below Babylon ; and 
just as the site of that famous city was situated at the dis- 
charge-point of its river thousands of years ago, so was 
the site of Yuma and the Yuma Valley of Arizona the mouth 
of the Colorado River in former epochs. Enormous plains 
and valleys in Arizona, California and Mexico have been 
formed by the successive deltas of this river, consisting of 
alluvial soil of great depth and fertility. I will describe the 
region more particularly a little later, but for the moment, in 
order to close our survey of the northern Californian region, 
let us speak of the desert adjacent thereto, the desert of 
Nevada. 

On the eastern base of the Sierra Nevadas is a curious 
topographical region where rivers run into the earth and sink 
there. (There are other singular places near the Colorado 
River, such as valleys and lakes several hundred feet lower 
than sea-level, of which I will speak presently.) The Carson 
River descends from the Sierra Nevadas south of the point 
where the Southern Pacific Railway crosses, and empties 
into a valley which was at one time the bottom of one of 
those great lakes — such as the Great Salt Lake — which had 
no outlet. This singular valley is known as the Carson 
Sink, the river sinking there. With the early years of this 
century the region around was a useless desert ; but a remark- 
able irrigation work, one of the most important which has 
been carried out in this old-new engineering science in 



THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT 185 

Western America, has now been completed, bringing much 
of the land under cultivation. The Truckee River, as before 
described, is the overflow of Lake Tahoe, high up on the 
divoftia aquarum of the sierra of California, the western 
verge of the Great Basin. This river also descends the 
sierra, flowing away to the north into the lakes of the Pyramid 
Indian Reservation : the whole system being a hydrographic 
entity, with no outlet to a sea-flowing river. But the river 
has been arrested in its course. The forces of engineering of 
the United States Government dug a great canal and turned 
the waters of the Truckee River into the bed of the Carson 
River; built a huge dam across a natural depression of part 
of the Carson Sink, and formed with this barrage a monstrous 
reservoir, spending nine million dollars on the work. The 
great area of surrounding land which has been brought under 
the possibilities of irrigation by this wise governmental enter- 
prise is held mainly by the Government, and allotted as 
homesteads to settlers; and the soil is of that extraordinary 
fertility under the action of water which is only shown by 
these desert lands, whose long-stored-up elements of plant- 
nourishment have remained untouched throughout the history 
of the w^orld. Towns and plantations — fruits, flowers and 
cattle — have sprung up in a remarkable fashion in this valley ; 
and thus have the snows of the Californian sierras trans- 
formed themselves into vegetation and life, into man, woman 
and civilization. Not a great distance away from this new 
centre are the world-famous silver mines of Nevada; and 
a new branch railwav connects the region with the main 
line of the Southern Pacific, which stretches away towards 
the Great Salt Lake. 

Carson City is the capital of the state of Nevada, but 
it grows slowly, for Nevada is not a favourite state for the 
home-seeking Westerner. Yet it has given up great riches 
in gold and silver : hundreds of millions of dollars, as 
Virginia City and the Comstock may well remind us. 
Divided by forbidding longitudinal mountain ridges, Nevada, 
nevertheless, possesses many valleys of alluvial soil — many 
where enterprise has not yet penetrated, and which remain 
for future operations. Yet as regards Nevada we may again 
ask, "What shall we say of the desert?" We may say it 



186 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

is a thing of great surprises; and the State of Nevada in 
1900 found again that the struggle between man and the 
desert brought her fresh fame and riches. If you should 
ask what these are, the people of Nevada will mention three 
names — Tonopah, Bullfrog and Goldfields. When I passed 
that way those places were not known. But there are always 
possibilities in the desert, and when I traversed them, 
whether in the saddle or in the Pullman car, I always beheld 
them with interest. The horizon of faint grey hills, expanses 
of sand and sage-brush intervening, lowering sun and the 
shadowy coyote, always seem to hide some genii of hidden, 
yet some day attainable wealth ! This, indeed, is but the 
desert romance which has lured on the prospector and the 
pathfinder throughout history — whether to fortune, whether 
to misfortune. I always felt, moreover, a kind of pity for 
those barren regions despised and rejected as they were by 
all those who hurried on to more favoured spots. There 
always seems something of pathetic appeal in the low hills 
and grey monotony of the arid desert of that part of 
America ; and when I hear of a scanty Indian well, set there 
almost unknown, blossoming out in three years to a great 
mining camp, stacking up millions of dollars in gold and 
silver ore against the arrival of the hurrying railway con- 
structors, I feel that the appeal of the desert has been 
vindicated. 

Such a place is Tonopah. A desert surprise of dramatic 
interest took place there such as has sustained the romance 
of the western wildernesses. In the middle of the year 1900 
a prospector — he was also a district attorney of Nevada, but 
possibly had grown w-eary of the desk and musty law — set 
out into the desert and camped one night near a feeble 
spring which issued from the rocks in that appalling wilder- 
ness of low, grey, barren hills and sand and sage-brush. It 
was a place where Nature seemed to have got to her last 
resource when she called it to being. The monotony of the 
parched scrub and sun-beat plain was relieved — if relief it 
were — only by the patches of volcanic ash, which lay or 
drifted silently, the product of ancient volcanic activities. 
The name Tonopah signifies in the Indian dialect — and no 
one but an Indian would have named it at all — "water near 



THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT 187 

the surface," and the desert spring seemed to be the only 
thing of value contained in that appalling place— sterile, 
silent, lifeless. But the prospector, after the manner of his 
kind, gathered some pieces of black quartz which seemed to 
contain promise of gold. Leaving the place he returned to 
the town and left his specimens for assay. The assayer 
thought they looked so unpromising that he threw them 
away ! but thought better of it, and subjected them to the 
test. What was the result? They were found to contain 
gold and silver to the value of ;^75 per ton. Astonished at 
this, the prospector took two partners, returned to the spring, 
formed a camp — his wife fetching water and doing the cook- 
ing; took out two tons of ore, sent it to a San Francisco 
smelting works and received in return ;^200 for this small 
shipment. Thus was the beginning: of one of the most 
remarkable mines of the American West; and as the news 
spread, eager miners rushed in from all quarters ; and by the 
end of 1904. what had been an uninhabited wilderness became 
a busy mining town, having to-day a population of five thou- 
sand people, with electric-light, schools, water-supply, shops, 
houses and churches, whilst a local paper says that new 
millionaires positively jostle one another in the streets ! 

Let us now return to the wonderful region drained by 
the Great Colorado River — the deserts of x'\rizona, California 
and Mexico. As before observed, we are transported here 
into an American "Asia Minor" as regards the regimen of its 
rivers and artificial and natural irrigation : and we are again 
reminded of the possibilities of civilization in arid regions, 
and the analogv with the work of Egvptians of the Nile, the 
Babylonians of the Euphrates and Tigris, the Chinese by 
their own great streams, the Hindus of the Indus and the 
Ganges, the Mexicans of the Nazas, the Incas of Peru, and 
the old unknown peoples of Arizona. Having in view such 
examples it would seem that the United States Government 
were well justified in creating their Reclamation Service, 
which carried out the great works at Carson and those in 
Arizona. Two great irrigation enterprises are being carried 
on here ; one upon the Colorado River at Yuma and the 
other upon the Salt River. The first-named of these consists 
of a great dam of the weir type, such as are employed on 



188 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the rivers of British India; and the resulting reservoir will 
irrigate great areas of the richest desert alluvial land, on 
both the California and Arizona sides of the river. The weir 
is 4,750 feet long and 250 feet wide, and the waters of the 
Colorado will pass over it in a broad sheet. The Salt River 
reservoir will be twenty-five miles long, impounding nearly 
one and a quarter million acre-feet of water. 

These silt-laden streams, for such they are, are the cause 
of much fertility. The soil of these great delta-deserts is 
ordinarily deficient in nitrogen and organic matter, which is 
supplied by the overflowing waters. The rivers of this 
region, the Colorado and its tributaries, it is stated by 
experts, carry from five to twenty-eight pounds of nitrogen 
in the silt-alluvium resulting from the acre-foot of water — a 
fact which bears out theoretically the ancient truth of the 
fertility of river waters, as in the case of the Nile. The 
Colorado River, moreover, it has been calculated, carries 
down one and a half million tons of fertilizing mud, held in 
suspension, every day. 

Of intense interest are these ancient delta lands ethnologic- 
ally. The bed of the Salt River reservoir was at one time 
the scene of a busy agricultural population of the people of 
the cliff-dwellers, and the first white settlers who arrived in 
the region some forty years ago easily distinguished the 
boundaries of these ancient fields, which, with the lines of 
the old irrigating conduits, are still to be traced. The 
ground must have been cultivated by these prehistoric people, 
and formed a granary for a great population ; examination 
having shown that the alluvial soil has been spread by 
artificial irrigation many centuries ago. These lands, which 
the constant fertilizing process of irrigation renders inex- 
haustible, are to be portioned out to settlers when, in a year 
or so, the works are completed. Thus the United States 
Government is admirably carrying out valuable work which 
private capital would not undertake. As it is, great crops 
of alfalfa are raised in the already settled lands ; stock-breed- 
ing carried on, as well as orange-growing; whilst towns are 
springing up and the land rising in value. 

A similar tale may be told of the desert blossoming in 
what is now termed the "Imperial Valley": a new name 



THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT 189 

for an extraordinary topographical region situated between 
the Colorado River on the east and the San Jacinto Moun- 
tain on the west, in the south-east corner of California near 
its boundary with Mexico. Near the northern end of the 
great valley lies the famous Salton Sea, the remarkable and 
formerly mysterious lake which in bygone epochs formed 
the head of the Gulf of California. The receding of this left, 
inland, a sea, which, evaporating, deposited a great body 
of almost pure salt. Its unexplained constant refilling has 
been explained as being due to periodical overflows of the 
Colorado River. Recently this habit has been prevented bv 
extensive dykes, made at much expense, and with great 
engineering skill, which control the waters of the river. As 
for the Salton Sea itself, it is enclosed in a rim of hills which 
rise two hundred feet above its surface, and which ensure 
safety from its possible overflow for the farms of the valley. 
Moreover, the utilization of the surplus waters of the river 
above the irrigation works which supply the canals of 
the valley will bring about a constant regimen of the river, 
and it is expected that the once mysterious Salton Sea will 
shrink and evaporate, and at length completely vanish. The 
whole of this valley once formed, as stated, part of the Gulf 
of California; it is a great delta deposit of alluvial soil, and 
the channels of freshets at times cut down into this to eighty 
feet of depth. It is calculated that the pure alluvium, in 
places, is five hundred feet deep : silt from the decomposed 
Colorado and Arizona rocks brought down by the streams 
during past ages. The river, moreover, is pushing the head 
of the Great Gulf of California, in Mexico, southwards at 
the rate of nearly two and a half miles per annum, so modify- 
ing the form of the "Vermilion Sea" of Cortes. The irriga- 
tion system here contains one thousand miles of main and 
subsidiary canals. Oranges, dates, figs and grapes, beet- 
roots, melons, alfalfa are produced, and a thornless cactus 
has been evolved — a valuable forage plant. 

But what shall we say of new villages 265 feet below the 
level of the sea! Yet such is the remarkable topographical 
fact, and the Southern Pacific Railway, the line from Los 
Angeles to Yuma which traverses this region, passes along 
the bed of this ancient salt lake for a long distance, 250 feet 



190 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

below sea-level. This singular region is set between the 
Colorado River, not far away on the east, and the Pacific 
Ocean at no great distance away on the west, A further 
instance of a natural oddity is the oasis at the station of 
Indio, on this line. This is an oasis of a Government 
nursery of date palms, experimentally planted, situated below 
sea-level, and watered by artesian wells which have tapped 
a subterranean stream a quarter of a mile below the surface 
of the sun-beat desert sand ! A little further on are other 
date gardens, under similar conditions, and more than two 
hundred artesian wells give them life from the same sub- 
terranean streams. It is believed that a new industry will 
be established in date-growing, eighty varieties of which 
fruit are being cultivated here. 

Arizona is a remarkable land. A new civilized Arizona 
is springing up. Towns with electric light, schools and 
other matters are flourishing now where the desert stretched 
formerly, and the cowboy is giving place to the professor. 
But Arizona is famous for its natural world. Is it not the 
land of the marvellous Grand Caiion, of the Painted Desert, 
and, with its sister state of New Mexico, the home of the old 
cliff-dwellers and of the Enchanted Mesa? Nowhere in the 
world is the desert so wondrous and unique as in Arizona. 

In the conquest of the desert by irrigation there are three 
stages : the making of the irrigation works — reservoirs, 
canals, etc.; the preparation of the land for the water; and 
the choice of and cultivation of the plants and crops. It is 
not to be expected that the ordinary farmer, possibly from 
humid regions where neither theory nor practice of irrigation 
is known, could undertake these matters; and so the Govern- 
ment Department instructs him in all necessary particulars. 
Professors and practical men are in charge; and, moreover, 
special travellers are sent out to all the lands of the world 
by this wise department of agriculture, to seek and bring 
in suitable plants. Thus dates from Arabia, olives and 
oranges from Spain, rhubarb from Central Asia, celery from 
Europe, asparagus from England, cloves from Egypt, 
Smyrna figs, alfalfa from Turkestan, date palms from the 
Sahara, oats from Sweden, wheat from Russia — all have been 
brought in. 




a 

z 
o 

w 



THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT 191 

The irrigation agriculturists of America soon found that 
irrigation without drainage soon produced evils, as meddling 
with Nature often does. A saturation point in the soil is 
reached which kills vegetation, soluble salts and alkalis are 
deposited at the surface as the water evaporates, and last, 
but not least, malarias and agues are brought about as a 
result of the stagnant water in the subsoil. This latter fact 
I have observed in places so widely separated as Northern 
California, Central Mexico and Southern Peru, and in some 
cases have personally suffered from the results. 

But science overcomes these things, and the Great 
American Desert, which was not many years ago an arid 
wilderness, or at best a grazing-ground for antelope and 
buft'aloes, is being converted into fields of waving grain and 
luscious orchards. The buffalo and the bloody Apache have 
come and gone; the cowboy has come and — almost — gone, 
and the "man with the hoe" now occupies the field. 

A word here as to Nature's cactus gardens. Have you 
ever seen one, kind reader ? — you will never again think that 
the desert does not produce beautiful things : and, indeed, 
rare beauties of the plant world. I have, during hot and 
weary rides over volcanic ranges or arid, sun-beat hills, come 
upon some little amphitheatre of the desert where Nature for 
some whim or cogent reason has collected together her choice 
and varied specimens of the cactus world. It is a singular 
fact that many species get together. Their forms and colour- 
ing, both as to thorny limbs— for leaves they have not- — and 
singular flowers are beautiful and unique. Here is a spread- 
ing compact cushion which, were it not studded with spikes, 
would invite one to rest, like a grassy bank; here is a tall 
pillar of octagonal form, with elegant rows of spikes up the 
edges of its eight faces; here is a unique "pin-cushion," 
provided already with a myriad pins, with the points out- 
ward, but bringing forth fruit, and by its fruit ye shall judge 
it, for it is, in flavour, like a juicy lemon and most refreshing 
on a desert ride. Here, indeed, we shall gather grapes of 
thorns and figs of terrible spike-bearing desert orchards, 
for the delicious tuna, or prickly-pear or wild-fig, is one of 
the chief inhabitants of the desert gardens, and greatly 
appreciated both in its wild and cultivated states. 



192 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

As 1 have reflected elsewhere, the railway in Western 
America is a more familiar and living part of life than in 
Europe. In the country it is unfenced and open, and runs 
down the middle of the streets of towns in many cases, and 
no Act of Parliament demands level-crossing gates, or 
bridges under streets. Incidentally this useful and familiar 
friend devours a good many more people annually than do 
the railways of Britain, and it has been calculated that the 
victims of railway disasters in the United States, in a single 
year, exceed the total loss of life in the famous Boer War ! 
But only those who have sojourned in the West can under- 
stand how living a link the railway is with the outside world. 

Have you ever dwelt in a little frontier town, kind reader, 
on the great prairie, where the sun rises and sets upon the 
petty incidents of life of a cut-off community of the West? 
If so you will not have resisted it — resisted going to the 
station at the hour when the single daily train is timed to 
roll in. There is no platform or station enclosure probably : 
only the single line of rails and sleepers, a siding, a few 
shanties, and beyond and around it the broad stretch of 
desert extending away to the curvature of the earth, with 
nothing to break the eye except the dust-spirals whirling 
upwards from earth to sky, eddying away to nothing. But 
hark, what is that ? a faint roar, a faint patch of vapour on 
the horizon, which some among the inhabitants — for all are 
collected there — say they see and hear; some say they do 
not, according to their sight or imagination. It is the train; 
it has emerged from the nothingness of the horizon, and, a 
living entity, is approaching from the outside world. " Here 
she comes," says the Anglo-American loafer — if we are in 
Anglo- America (for this scene may be anywhere in the West). 
"Aqui viene la maquina," the Spanish-American equally 
says, and it means the same thing; and presently the train 
rolls up, the passengers gaze from the windows of the Pull- 
man car, all is bustle for an instant; a sack of mail — ha! 
letters from home, and newspapers from the world — is thrown 
out. "All aboard ! " or " Vamanos ! " (according to the land 
or language as aforesaid) is shouted by the conductor of 
this desert convoy, and before we can turn to leave the place 
the ponderous vehicle is but a speck upon its shining lines 



THE CONQUEST OF THE DESERT 193 

far away, and only the faint "click-clack" of the resetting 
rails under the hammer of the locomotive wheel is heard, 
which itself presently dies away. 

I must confess that the railways of Western America have 
afforded me subjects of interest, both as an engineer and an 
observer. I have made journeys on foot over long stretches 
of some of these railways, traversing great viaducts where 
no balustrade intervenes between the rails and the ravine 
below. Some of these high viaducts — as in California or 
elsewhere, are of great length, spanning valleys and deep 
ravines thousands of feet wide, and they consist of nothing 
but the high trestle or bridge girders, with no space for 
passing by any incautious foot-passenger who might be 
caught by a train there. 

On one occasion I was caught thus. It was a long trestle 
on a curve, terminating at the end across the valley in a rock 
cutting, and I entered upon it hoping to hear the sound of 
a train — should there be one coming — before I had got too 
far to return, or near enough to the other end to reach it 
before the locomotive might enter upon the viaduct. But 
exactly what I feared might happen did befall. I had just 
reached the middle of the viaduct — it was about a thousand 
feet long — when I heard an ominous sound near. It must 
be a train ! I laid my ear to the rails, and there was no 
possibility of mistaking the vibration. To go, or to return, 
that was the question ; for beneath me roared a river a 
hundred feet below. I did not waste time in cogitating, but 
began to start to run back. Now running is not easy upon 
railway "ties" or sleepers, for they are spaced at a distance 
too short for your stride, and it is easy to catch the foot in 
the open space between, and trip up, unless going slowly. I 
had scarcely run a hundred feet when the locomotive emerged 
with a roar from the cutting and entered upon the viaduct; 
and I turned knowing that it must overtake me long before 
I could reach the end. I confess my heart stood in my 
mouth. The train was a heavy mineral train coming on with 
frightful velocity, and the driver, even if he had seen me, 
which possibly he did not, and even if he were willing to stop 
(which very possibly he was not, for your Western American 
engine-driver does not hold human life in the same value as 
o 



194 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

his British confrere) could not have pulled up in the distance. 
Was I to die thus; to be hurled into the forest below by the 
cow-catcher of a locomotive on a rickety viaduct ? I thought 
not; and like an inspiration came the idea to let myself over 
the side of the structure and hang on by my hands. To 
think was to act; I slid over; the engine reached and passed 
me, a few feet from my head; the viaduct shook under the 
heavy train, nearly shaking me off ; and then the train passed 
after what seemed an age. And I pulled myself up and lay 
down to breathe freely between the rails. Whenever I hear 
the roar of a locomotive I think of that great viaduct, river, 
pine forests and the hurtling train. 

In the conquest of the desert, good reader, we shall not 
be free from perils. Yet an immortal chronicler of the desert 
has said — and the heart of the pioneer shall repeat it — that 
the traveller shall not dash his foot against a stone, and that 
no plague shall come nigh his dwelling, nor the lion and the 
adder be a cause of danger to him. 



IX 

OREGON AND WASHINGTON : THE LANDS OF THE COLUMBIA 

RIVER 

There are certain regions which, by some set of circum- 
stance, seem to remain Httle known by the outside world. 
Who except those immediately connected therewith remember 
where the states of Oregon and Washington are ; or what 
is the occupation of their people ? Yet here is a country 
on the Pacific Coast, with a shore-line five hundred miles 
in length and embodying vast areas of valuable land border- 
ing upon the tributaries of the largest and most important 
river throughout the whole of the Americas, North, Central 
or South, which empties its waters into the Pacific — the 
Columbia River. Fifty-five years ago a remark was made about 
this region by the member of the American Congress which, 
if not complimentary, is historic. He said — and it is the 
same sort of thing which British statesmen have said about 
our own colonies in earlier periods, so we will not be Phari- 
saical — that he "would not give a pinch of snuff for the whole 
territory." 

Yet Oregon, in its early history, was a region of much 
greater political and commercial value either than California 
or British Columbia. Moreover, the Oregon question severely 
taxed the resources of diplomacy of British and North 
American statesmen, and was at that period almost a cause 
of war, as has been set forth in the chapter of this work 
devoted to the historical development of the coast. Oregon 
extends from California northwardly to the Columbia River; 
Washington from that great fluvial highway stretches north- 
ward to Puget Sound and the 49th parallel, which forms its 
frontier with British Columbia, both states extending from 
the coast back to their boundary with Idaho. 

The main line railway which runs northwardly through the 
o 2 195 



196 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Great Central Valley of California — which valley I have fully 
described in the chapter upon the Golden Gate — follows the 
course of the Sacramento River to the head of that valley 
and its great terminating landmark, Mount Shasta, amid 
whose snows the Sacramento is born. Crossing the Siskiyou 
range the railway enters the state of Oregon and traverses it 
between the Cascade range and the Coast range to where it 
reaches the great Columbia River and the important city of 
Portland. 

Portland is looked upon, or, in a certain American aphorism, 
is expressed as, a species of Western Ultima Thule. "From 
Portland, Maine, to Portland, Oregon," the iVmerican says 
when he wishes to embrace his whole continent from east to 
west, for on the rock-bound coast of Maine there is also a 
town called Portland, much older, however, than its sister 
of the Pacific slope. 

Oregon dififers from California greatly as regards its 
climate, for it is a region of much heavier rainfall. Whilst 
California has but one navigable river, Oregon has four, 
notwithstanding that the first-named state has a coast-line 
seven hundred miles long and Oregon 350 miles. These 
rivers are the Columbia, the Willamette, the Umpqua and 
the Rogue River. All of these rivers empty into the Pacific, 
and all of them run westwardly and transversely from the 
mountains to the sea, except the Willamette, which is a 
longitudinally flowing artery, and an affluent of the Columbia, 
and coming from the south it empties into the latter great 
stream near Portland, some distance from the coast. 

The climate, even in the north of Oregon, is remarkably 
mild, as evidenced by the fact that the mouth of the Willa- 
mette River — whose latitude is two hundred miles north of 
that of Boston on the Atlantic^ — is rarely covered in winter 
with more than a mere film of ice ; whilst in some places the 
snow does not last three days in succession. This is the 
effect of the Japan current. Oregon possesses some fine 
lakes, as the Upper and Lower Klamath, and numerous other 
large bodies of water halfway across the territory towards the 
borders of the neighbouring state of Idaho. But perhaps the 
most unique of mountain lakes of these regions, next to Tahoe 
in California, is the remarkable Crater Lake, in the heart of 



OREGON AND WASHINGTON 197 

the Cascade Mountains. This is one of those singular bodies 
of fresh water found at high elevation in the American Cordil- 
leras, of which Tahoe in California is an example (and, 
although of a different character, the high upland lakes of 
Mexico and Peru). Crater Lake is at an elevation above 
sea-level of 6,260 feet, and, as its name implies, it is of 
volcanic origin — the waters filling up a crater-orifice. It is, 
indeed, part of that volcanic region of which the Sierra 
Nevadas of California are a continuation ; and Lake Tahoe 
is of similar character. Mysterious and inaccessible lies this 
beautiful mirror-lake : a clear crater-cupful twenty miles in 
circumference with a precipitous rim from 1,500 to 3,000 
feet above the surface of the water. So enclosed is it by these 
forest-fringed walls, which are reflected in the clear trans- 
parent element below them, that no mountain breeze ever 
enters to rufifle the surface. Access can be gained to its 
uninhabited shore — for neither bird, beast nor fish exist there 
— by one single narrow way, and then only in summer; for 
in the winter season the way through the surrounding forests 
of the region is blocked with deep snow. The island which 
arises in the lake is about three miles long, a volcanic cone 
nearly nine hundred feet high, with a crater five hundred feet 
in diameter. This strange mountain lake has neither inlet 
nor outlet for its waters, except it be a subterranean one, as 
possibly evidenced by the caves upon its verge ; and no 
bottom has been reached at two thousand feet. 

Common heritage of Oregon, Washington and British 
Columbia is the great Columbia River, so named by the 
American, Gray, who discovered its mouth, from the first 
ship which entered it. Referring to the name Columbia, 
it is a singular fact that no state of the American republic 
has adopted the classic nomenclature for its own. That 
splendid outpost of the British Empire on this Pacific 
Ocean — British Columbia — has taken it for its own, whilst, 
far to the south in the Spanish-American world beyond the 
Isthmus of Panama, the republic of that name is also so 
christened. The state of Washington, sandwiched in between 
British Columbia on the north and the Columbia River on the 
south, made, at the time of its separation from Oregon, a 
feeble effort to adopt the name of "Columbia," which might 



198 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

have been appropriate, and would at least have saved the 
American post-offices — to say nothing of the foreigner — the 
confusion sometimes arising from having two districts of 
Washington — one on the Atlantic, another on the Pacific. But 
the opportunity was lost, as it was vetoed by Congress ; and 
even when the territory, later on, was admitted as a state, no 
change was made. 

The Columbia River, with its magnificent background of 
eternal snow-clad mountains of mighty form, and its vast 
length of three thousand miles, claiming for itself the grandest 
river scenery in the world, is veritably the father of this vast 
region of the north-west which it drains, and the premier 
/ stream of all those fluvial ways which empty on the Great 
Pacific Coast, from Alaska to Patagonia. Enthusiastic 
travellers have, indeed, acclaimed its superiority to the St. 
Lawrence and the Hudson, or to the Danube, the Rhine or 
the Elbe; whilst South America has no stream of this 
character at all. 

The city of Portland is upon the Willamette River, a few 
miles above its confluence with the Columbia, about a hundred 
miles from the coast at Astoria. It is a well-situated place 
of much importance, with a large, busy population. Not- 
withstanding its distance from the estuary, Portland is prac- 
tically a seaport, the river being sufficiently deep to permit 
the passage of ocean steamships, and nearly a mile wide. The 
\J group of great snow-clad peaks of the Cascade range, five 
volcano peaks which are beheld from the city, are a marked 
feature of the topographical environment of Oregon's gate- 
way. Mount Hood is 1 1,200 feet high, and Mount St. Helens 
9,750; and from the streets of Portland they stand up start- 
lingly and clearly in their gleaming snowy beauty. The 
internal heat of St. Helens' volcanic fires wars against the 
perpetual snow-cap, and there is a space near its summit 
which is bare of snow. The peak has the conical form char- 
acteristic of this class of volcanoes, such as Popocatepetl 
in Mexico, Chimborazo in Ecuador, Coropuna and the Misti 
in Peru, and others in these lands which front upon the Great 
Pacific littoral. These are in contrast to the class of volcanoes 
which have a serrated crest, such as Mount Hood in Oregon, 
Shasta in California, Ixtaccihuatl in Mexico, Sara-Sara in 



OREGON AND WASHINGTON 199 

Peru, etc., which occur at the moment to my mind. The 
Indian name for Mount St. Helens is Lou-wala-clough, mean- 
ing "The Smoking Mountain," from its volcanic character, 
some activity, it is stated, having been evident in 1853. It is 
interesting to compare its name with that of the Mexican 
Popocatepetl, which also means "The Smoking Mountain" 
in Indian nomenclature. 

An attractive and notable feature of these snowy mountains 
of the Oregon region, from Shasta in California to Mount 
Tacoma in Washington, is their relative isolation from each 
other or from other groups, a characteristic which affords 
an added grandeur and individuality. Where numerous 
snowy peaks are jumbled together in close proximity to each 
other they lose in individuality; but where they start gleam- 
ing from the dark forest-seas which clothe their bases and 
the low hills around them, their beauty is accentuated. More- 
over, the sky of the American cordilleras backs them with an 
intense blue, from British Columbia to Peru. The forest 
contrast in Peru and Chile is not, of course, obtained, as the 
Andes are treeless ; nevertheless, the solitary snow-capped 
queens of the Andes gleam from above their purple foothills 
and burnt-sienna-coloured deserts with similar individuality. 
Also, the great height of the snowy peaks of the Ecuadorian 
and Peruvian cordilleras, or rather their altitude above sea- 
level, renders them more remarkable than their sisters of 
North America. In Peru I have lived in large towns where 
the people pursue their daily occupation at an elevation greater 
than that of the summit of any of the Californian or 
Oregonian snow-queens, or, indeed, higher than the summit 
of Mont Blanc ! Moreover, the sky of the American cordil- 
leras lends an added beauty in being cloudless, all down the 
Pacific coast. 

Snow-clad mountains are ever a subject of fascination for 
the traveller. It is not that they are merely things which 
excite one's curiosity — although the craving simply to 
scramble up to their glorious crests and say we have been 
there is common with us all — but to some their beauty as 
Nature's processes is equally alluring. Behold the mighty 
hydraulic engines of the Cordilleras! Have you seen "the 
treasures of the snow " ? how they are mightily piled up on 



200 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the roof of the world ; deposited upon those great storehouses 
from moisture-laden winds which have swept over thousands 
of miles of sea or plain to perform their valuable function 
of doing what ? — the question is answered by the agriculturist 
or peasant, who, hoe in hand, is irrigating some patch of 
thirsty land a hundred miles below from a stream — perchance 
he knows not whence it came. And here are the slow-moving 
glacier-engines — the lower edge of the perpetual ice-cap — 
that line where Nature's forces are so strikingly at work, 
where the adventurous traveller is permitted to gaze into one 
of the joints of her harness. 

Mount Rainier or Tacoma, the pride of Washington's 
mountains, is 14,444 feet in altitude, and it gains in indi- 
viduality in rising from sea-level almost, displaying its great 
snowfields and glaciers even from the sea. Mount Rainier, 
as well as Mount Hood, were named by Vancouver, who 
first sighted them in 1792, after British peers, whilst Mount 
St. Helens had a somewhat similar origin. These names have 
been objected to by some patriotic American writers and 
tourists in view of their being on what now is American soil. 
Indeed, the naming of mountains after individuals, such as 
has been common in the Pacific North-west, has been a 
common defect. In Spanish America the original Indian 
names — and they are generally of poetic meaning — have not 
been supplanted; but the Anglo-American has often suffered 
from a poverty of nomenclature in his hills and settlements. 
In the United States repetitions of old-world names abound; 
and it is almost startling to the tlraveller, as he comes 
suddenly upon the ugly wayside station of some mushroom 
village, flung out upon the prairie or upon some barren foot- 
hills, to read the name of "Paris " or "London " ! Even such 
practical appellations as "Shirt-tail Caiion," or "Kicking- 
horse Gulch," such as it has been my fortune to observe, have 
at least the merit of originality, although I confess I never 
felt much attracted towards the name of "Tombstone," the 
enterprising town of Arizona ! Recently, however, the 
citizens of that place have taken steps to change the name. 

Mount Rainier or Tacoma (the latter is an Indian designa- 
tion meaning "mountain") is visible from great distances, 
as at Portland in Oregon, 120 miles to the south, and east- 



OREGON AND WASHINGTON 201 

wardly for 150 miles, but appears splendidly at a near range 
of forty miles from the veranda of the hotel at Tacoma ; whilst 
from Puget Sound it is beheld from the steamer's deck, and 
from the windows of the Pullman car upon the Northern 
Pacific Railroad. At times it presents that singular view 
known to the Cordilleran traveller, when a snowy cone seems 
to be floating ethereally upon a sea of mist which shrouds 
the forests and hills of its base. 

The settled and cultivated part, so far, of the state of 
Oregon is the region contained between the Cascade Moun- 
tains and the Coast Ranges, fronting upon the Pacific ; espe- 
cially the great fertile valley of the Willamette. Beyond this, 
to the east, huge areas on the map are marked, "Sage 
Plains," and they are semi-arid and little known, partaking 
of the nature of the land we have traversed, in the state of 
Nevada, to the east of California. Here man's fight with 
nature has but begun ; but what even the desert may hold for 
his conquest it would be rash too lightly to consider. The 
character of the great American desert extends as far north 
as this region, for on the sandy plains of Eastern Wash- 
ington the cactus flowers as in the deserts of Arizona and 
Southern California. Here it was that the pioneers on the 
Oregon trail took their way through the wilderness. 

The Indians of this part of America are largely employed 
in the hop-fields, when they are employed at all. In some 
regions upon the coast, notably in Puget Sound, the desultory 
and degenerate red man has retained his primitive character, 
almost within sight of the new cities of the white man. Here 
Indian lodges may be seen — the women busy cooking or 
mending, or hewing wood or drawing water, whilst the noble 
warrior lies dreaming on his back ! 

Puget Sound is one of the few important indentations of 
the Pacific coast ; for these, when they occur, form the 
centres of civilized life and commerce which ever cluster 
about harbours. Cities crowd upon foreshores, or climb hill- 
sides ; vessels go forth to distant lands, bearing thence and 
bringing thither matters of traffic and supply ; railways take 
their departure from wharf-sides to cross great mountain 
ranges and broad plains, and the hum of human activity 
resounds as a natural result of the topographical accident. 



202 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

From Tacoma on this American Mediterranean of Puget 
Sound, steamers sail for Asiatic ports to take their share of the 
great spoil of trade with the "yellow peril " of Asia. Coasting 
steamers ply to San Francisco, also, a thousand miles to the 
south. The port of Tacoma is some three hundred miles 
nearer to Canton and other Chinese ports than San Fran- 
cisco, for we must recollect that the Pacific coast is here 
sweeping westwardly towards Asia. Vessels laden with the 
inexhaustible timber of Puget Sound forests sail to every 
part of the world — the famous "Oregon Pine" of the timber- 
merchant. From this point also the Northern Pacific Rail- 
road takes its way through the state of Washington — which 
it practically created— eastwardly across the continent : one 
of those stupendous trans-continental trunk-lines which are 
veritable masterpieces of the science of railway building. The 
Canadian Pacific and the Great Northern also have their 
termini upon these waters. 

Puget Sound is that break in the North American Pacific 
Coast, entered by the common British and American highway 
of the Straits of Juan de Fuca — so named after the Italian 
explorer — at the south of Vancouver Island and British 
Columbia. It is indeed the first of the system of fjords which 
with the islands are so striking a feature of the topography 
of this part of the coast, after the general unbroken character 
of the Pacific coast-line, both north and south of Panama. 
Seattle, Tacoma and Olympia — important cities all of the 
American side — He upon the shores of Puget Sound; and on 
the Canadian side are Victoria, Vancouver and New West- 
minster. The city of Vancouver is the terminus of the great 
Canadian Pacific Railway. 

The Puget Sound region is a port and centre such as the 
future must develop into great importance upon the Pacific 
Coast of Anglo- and Anglo-American possessions. This 
splendid water-way and its harbours are slightly to the south 
of the latitude of London and Plymouth. For, let us recol- 
lect, the British Isles occupy and spread over the same 
latitude as British Columbia; whilst Scotland, and Southern 
Alaska cover the same parallels. The good people of the 
"land of cakes and thistles" do not often recollect, perhaps, 
that they are in the latitude of Alaska ! 





o 



OREGON AND WASHINGTON 203 

This great Anglo-American inland sea of Puget Sound 
extended southwards in a former geological epoch to the 
Willamette Valley in Oregon — 150 miles away, the land 
distance from Portland to Tacoma. The enormous forest 
regions upon the littoral of the Sound are of great commercial 
value, but unfortunately they are devastated by forest fires, 
which perennially ravage them; fires whose smoke obscures 
the snowy peaks of the Olympian Range, darkens the sun 
at noon-day, and sweeps far out upon the track of ocean 
steamers. It is less the inroads of the axe of the lumberman 
that has diminished this great timber region of the coast, 
than the fires — caused often by the selfish carelessness of 
whites or ignorance of Indians in these great northern woods. 

There are important coal-fields near Tacoma, whether of 
bitumen or anthracite coal. Gold-mining is of considerable 
importance in Oregon, and has been so since early days. 
Portland is an ^important flour-exporting city, nearly a 
million barrels of flour from Oregon's 140 flour-mills being 
dispatched to the Orient annually. Fruit-culture, dairying, 
stock-raising, lumbering and general farming are all indus- 
tries of this great temperate, fertile region. Oregon has a 
population of only half a million people; but it is calculated, 
with a density similar, for example, to that of the eastern 
state of Ohio, it could support eight million souls. The fine 
Willamette Valley, the "garden spot of the world," as the 
Oregonians term it, is 150 miles long and 60 miles wide, 
with an area of five million acres, threaded by the river, 
which is navigable for one hundred miles above Portland. 
All the products of the temperate zone are grown here, and 
give life to many prosperous towns. The Umpqua Valley 
and the Rogue River Valley are of lesser extent but of 
similar fertile character. 

Thus in Oregon and Washington exist a fine temperate 
region and a prosperous and developing people : whose great 
industrial centres of Seattle and others must become to the 
coast its Boston or New York : great centres whose prophet 
was the famous Seward. 



X 

BRITISH COLUMBIA : THE PACIFIC GATE OF EMPIRE 

Was it some dispensation of Providence whicli gave to 
Britain as colonies, not the lands of ancient empires, where 
gold and silver were to be had by flourish of conquistadorial 
sword and trumpet, not the giddy wealth-allurement of 
Mexico and Peru, nor yet the effeminate spices of the East, 
but the lands of wheat fields, pine forests, fisheries, iron, 
copper and coal. The wealth which fell to British Empire 
luck was less palpable perchance at first, less feverish than 
that of the more southern conquest-lands whose El Dorados 
were there for the taking, but it was wealth enduring, prodigal 
gifts which should be won not by the sword, but by the 
wheels of commerce. Foremost among these characteristic 
empire-lands of our hardy race is that splendid sea-fronting 
imperium, in imperio of British Columbia, lying like a young 
giant facing the sunsets upon the Great Pacific Coast. Who 
would change the forest-covered mountains and the fertile 
valleys of British Columbia for the treeless Andes of Peru or 
the rank Amazonian jungles which they hide from the 
Pacific? With all their stores of Inca gold and Spanish 
silver I, for one, would not be a party to such an exchange : 
and I have trodden Canada and traversed Peru, and so may 
speak of them. I mean no disparagement to the old land 
of the Inca; the modern Spanish-American Republic which 
is beginning to awake to progress now. I simply speak in 
terms of geographical fact. Spanish America is a great 
land of opportunity; but the wide temperate belt of British 
North America, inhabited and to be inhabited by a great 
temperate people, must surely be a leader of twentieth-century 
development. 

The climate and character of the capital of British 
Columbia — the city of Victoria — is singularly British in 

204 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 205 

character; just as Montreal, the Atlantic terminus and gate- 
way of Canada is. Moreover, the work performed by the 
Gulf Stream for the British Isles is, in a measure, performed 
for the island of Vancouver and the British Columbian coast 
by the Japan current. The Asia-facing British of Victoria 
are not less English than their kinsmen of old Albion ; 
perhaps, indeed, they are still more vigorous. 

The topographical formation of British Columbia obeys 
the general Andine structure of the Great Pacific Coast 
littoral elsewhere. Looking at the map we observe how 
paralleling mountain ranges persistently cross the meridians 
of longitude to the north-north-west, with interposing valleys 
and with rivers which, having drained them, break through 
the coast range and empty into the Pacific Ocean. Mightiest 
of the great Cordilleras of North America are the Rocky 
Mountains which, forming the eastern side of the great 
basin of the United States, as shown in the chapter upon 
California, continue northwards and form the eastern 
boundary of British Columbia. The coast range, the famous 
Cascade Mountains fronting upon the Pacific, have also 
passed through Oregon and Washington from the Sierra 
Nevadas of California. Beyond the Rocky Mountains to the 
east is another great Canadian province, that of Alberta. 
The Rockies may be described as the father of western 
Canada, just as the Andes are the father of Peru. 

The northern boundary of British Columbia is the Yukon 
and the North- West territories; to the east are Alberta and 
Athabasca ; to the south the United States holds sway, the 
states of Washington and Montana, whilst all the westward 
part, except that strip filched, to join south-east Alaska, by 
the United States (I mean filched in geographical appearance 
on the map), faces the Great Pacific Coast. The distance 
along this coast-line is some six hundred miles, whilst the 
whole county is seven hundred miles longer. The distance 
back from the sea to the Rocky Mountains in the widest part 
is some 450 miles, and the area of the state is given as 
between 372,630 and 395,610 square miles. It is, therefore, 
several times the size of Great Britain. 

This portion of the Great Coast possesses a notable hydro- 
graphical feature in that all the great rivers of North America 



206 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

on the Pacific littoral, with the single exception of the 
Colorado (and one or two lesser rivers which empty into the 
Pacific in Mexican territory), have their sources therein. 
These rivers are : the Columbia, which flows through the 
Province for more than six hundred miles, when it enters 
the states of Washington and Oregon ; the Fraser, 750 miles 
long, emptying into the Pacific via the Straits of Juan de 
Fuca at the south of Vancouver Island — the Fraser by whose 
great canon the Canadian Pacific Railway is enabled to 
ascend the Cordilleras of the Coast Range; the Skeena, three 
hundred miles long ; the Thompson, the Kootenay, the Naas, 
the Stikine, the Liard, and the Peace rivers. The area 
drained by these rivers and their affluents is equal to one- 
tenth of the whole of the North American continent. A land 
of mountains and rivers, British Columbia is also a land of 
numerous lakes, some of them more than three hundred 
square miles in area, and the lake and river system furnish 
valuable facilities for transportation. The innumerable lesser 
mountain streams are available as sources of hydro-electric 
energy and saw-mill power, as well as furnishing "drive- 
ways" for the purposes of the lumberman or timber industry 
— that singular method of water transportation of logs and 
timber known to the westerner. 

Four principal mountain ranges traverse British Columbia : 
the Rocky Mountains, as described, and the Selkirks on the 
east ; the Coast Range, or Cascade, and the Island Range 
on the Pacific side. The Rocky Mountains preserve their 
individual continuity; the Selkirks are more or less broken 
up into subsidiary ranges : the Purcell, Selkirk, Gold and 
Cariboo respectively ; and these main mountain divisions 
determine the characteristic formation of the country, of long 
valleys and great plateaux. Thus, along the western base of the 
Rocky Mountains extends a valley of singular regularity and 
great length — seven hundred miles — from the boundary with 
the United States towards the north. Between these ranges 
of the Selkirks, and extending away towards the Pacific, from 
which it is separated by the Coast Range, is a vast plateau 
or tableland, whose average elevation is 3,500 feet above 
sea-level. But, unlike the great arid Tnesa central of Mexico, 
or the high inclement punas of Peru and Bolivia, this table- 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 207 

land is generally fertile. It is, however, by no means a flat 
expanse, for it has been so eroded by streams that it presents 
the appearance of being traversed by lesser mountain ranges 
breaking up its surface. These features give place through- 
out large areas to broad flats and plains, low hills, rolling 
ground and a general configuration which has given rise to 
splendid agricultural and grazing lands. Up to the elevation 
above sea-level of 2,500 feet this plateau region will be 
agricultural under irrigation, the rainfall being insufficient; 
whilst up to 3,500 feet it will be a grazing country. This 
great interior plateau region was, in a former geological 
epoch, the bed of an inland sea. Its northern boundary is 
a cross range of mountains which trend towards and merge 
into the Arctic slope ; mountains which form the divortia 
aquarum for this part of the continent between the Pacific 
and the Arctic watersheds. Here the headwaters of the Peace 
River have their rise. 

Of this northern half of British Columbia, separated from 
the great plateau region, as above described, comparatively 
little is known, but the recent surveys for the Grand Trunk 
Pacific Railway have brought forward the existence of great 
forests, coal-fields, and great areas of cultivable land; and 
there can be no doubt that it contains natural wealth and 
resources of vast extent almost unsuspected at present. 

The climate of British Columbia is influenced largely by 
mountain and coast — current conditions, such as are also found 
in California, Peru and Chile, although to contrary effects. 
In British Columbia a series of alternating moist and dry 
zones are encountered. The moisture-laden winds from the 
Pacific, together with the influence of the Japan current, give 
rise upon the British Columbia coast-zone to a moderate, 
temperate climate, with a copious rainfall. These westerly 
winds impinge against the Coast Range in the first instance, 
and their interception causes a "dry belt" to exist to the 
east, in the plateau region described. But the higher currents 
of these humid Pacific winds carry moisture over to the 
Selkirk Mountains, upon their loftier peaks, resulting in a 
heavy snowfall thereon. This snowfall makes a contrast 
with the Rocky Mountains, their paralleling neighbours 
further on to the east. In the Andes of Peru the moisture- 



208 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

laden winds come from the opposite direction — the east — 
and cause similar conditions of snowfall with a dry coast- 
zone. 

The conditions of climate on the British Columbia littoral 
extend up the valleys of the great rivers which empty into 
the Pacific, such as the Skeena and Fraser rivers. The 
climate of the province as a whole embodies all the character- 
istics of the European temperate zone, in which the most 
advanced civilizations flourish ; and indeed the general climatic 
conditions of this favoured region are stated by experts to be 
superior to those of Great Britain. Whatever may be the 
effects of climate upon race it must be conceded that the 
people of British Columbia are the most highly civilized of 
the American peoples, North or South, as we deduce from our 
observations of the Californians and their Spanish-American 
neighbours, the Mexicans, as well as the Peruvians, Chileans, 
etc. This, of course, is due in the first instance to the 
relative purity of British stock of the British Columbian. 
The following additional particulars of climate are of value 
as coming from well-studied Canadian sources. 

"The climate of Vancouver Island, and the coast generally, 
corresponds very closely with that of England; the summers 
are warm with much bright sunshine, and severe frost 
scarcely ever occurs in winter. On the mainland similar 
conditions prevail till the higher levels are reached, where 
the winters are cooler. At Agassiz, on the Lower Fraser, 
the average mean temperature is in January ;^3° and in 
July 64°; the lowest temperature on record at this point is 
13°, and the highest 97°. There are no summer frosts, and 
the annual rainfall is sixty-seven inches, 95 per cent, of which 
falls during the autumn and winter." 

"To the eastward of the Coast Range, in Yale and West 
Kootenay the climate is quite different. The summers are 
warmer, the winters colder and the rainfalls are rather light 
— bright dry weather being the rule. The cold of winter is, 
however, scarcely ever severe, and the hottest days of summer 
are made pleasant by the fact that the air is dry and the nights 
are cool. Further north, in the undeveloped parts of the 
province, the winters are more severe." 

"The great diversity of climate and the unique atmospheric 




{-I 
< 

< 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 209 

conditions existing in the mountains, valleys, and along the 
coast, when added to the scenic grandeur of the landscape, 
give to life in British Columbia an indescribable charm. There 
is scarcely a farm house in all the valley regions that does 
not look out upon great ranges of majestic mountains, more 
or less distant. The floral beauty of the uncultivated lands 
and the wonderfully variegated landscapes are sources of 
constant delight, and impress one with the great extent of the 
province and its inexhaustible resources; and this great 
natural wealth is so evenly and prodigally distributed that 
there is no room for envy or rivalry between one district 
and another, each is equally endowed, and its people firmly 
convinced that theirs is the ' bonanza ' belt, unequalled by 
anything on top of the earth." 

The resources of this splendid region of the Great Pacific 
Coast, the home of a British people, are so important and 
varied as must occupy labour and capital in the future to 
an important extent. These resources, in order of their 
importance are: minerals and mining; lumbering, or the 
timber industry, including pulp-supply for paper; fisheries; 
agriculture, including wheat-growing, dairying, fruit-farming, 
stock-raising, or ranching, etc. ; whilst Vancouver straits and 
harbours and the northern harbour of Prince Rupert, form 
a great, growing maritime centre. The great trunk-lines which 
traverse — as the Canadian Pacific Railway — and will traverse 
it — as the Grand Trunk Pacific — render British Columbia a 
British highway of the utmost importance. 

Let us briefly consider these resources and industries. 
The mining industry of British Columbia has outstripped 
that of all other provinces of the Dominion of Canada. The 
total mineral production for the province since the industry 
began is given as fifty-five million sterling; the annual 
output of recent years being upwards of five million sterling. 
Notwithstanding what has been said as to the conquests and 
the El Dorados of other regions, it must be pointed out that 
gold it was which first drew attention to British Columbia; 
and the yellow metal, whether from lode or places mining, 
has taken premier place, with a total value of something like 
twenty-five million pounds sterling. This is followed in 
order of importance by silver, lead, copper and coal ; the last- 
p 



210 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

named being an important and increasing industry. Coal- 
mining has long been carried on at Vancouver Island — the 
well-known Nanaimo Colleries; and lately the great coal- 
fields of the Crow's Nest Pass have been developed. As to 
the mineral regions generally, these are not confined to any 
one zone, although the southern part of the province, having 
been easiest of access, has received more attention. The 
gold obtained from the placer mines which caused the early 
stampede — ^the Cariboo district in 1858 — rose to a value of 
nearly a million sterling in 186,-^, but fell off, as inevitably 
happens, and as took place in California. This first opera- 
tion of gold-mining is always followed by "hydraulic" and 
dredging operations from auriferous gravel and earth 
deposits, and the return from these sources in 1906 was 
somewhat under two million sterling. British Columbia is 
in the great zone of gold-bearing gravel deposits, such as 
I have described in the chapter on California, and such as 
(in a somewhat different form) I have examined in Peru and 
Bolivia. As regards lode mining there are some important 
and well-known enterprises in the province with deep and 
extensive workings and a considerable output, and British 
Columbia may be looked upon as a steady annual contributor 
of gold to the world's supplv. The recent vearly output is 
about one and a quarter million sterling. A feature of this 
production of lode-gold is that all but ten per cent, is 
recovered from smelting operations of copper and other 
ores. 

Silver is also largelv an outcome of lead and copper ore- 
production. There are various important lead-producing 
mines, whilst the copper output annuallv reaches nearlv two 
million sterling. As to coal, more than one and a half million 
tons annually are produced, as well as coke, and the numer- 
ous coal-fields of the province will furnish a source of fuel 
and industry for many generations. The iron-smelting 
industry awaits development, with manv possibilities, and 
petroleum wells have yet to be created. The smelting works 
of British Columbia, if few so far, are large and well- 
equipped, especially those of Nelson. The laws governing 
the prospecting and claiming of mines offer easv conditions 
to the miner, and there is a vast field for his operations. So 




Timber in British Columbia ; One of the great trees in vStanley Park. 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 211 

it is seen that minerals form a valuable asset of the province 
of British Columbia, and so of the British Empire. 

The forest areas of this province are given as embodying 
nearly two hundred million acres; and the immense reserves 
of merchantable timbers are perhaps the greatest in the whole 
of North America. Indeed the forest areas of Canada 
generally, are stated to exceed that of the United States and 
Europe combined. This timber wealth is one of the most 
readily available sources of British Columbian industry. 
The coast is heavily timbered as far north as Alaska, and 
the forest belt follows the sinuosities of the shore and the 
valleys of the rivers debouching thereon, and fringes the 
flanks of the mountains. The most valuable tree, and the 
most widely distributed on the Great Pacific Coast of North 
America is the Douglas fir, growing as it does from the 
coast inland to the Rocky Mountains and northwards up to 
the 51st parallel. Whilst it does not attain the dimensions 
of the big trees of California, which I have described else- 
where, the Douglas fir nevertheless reaches immense pro- 
portions, having a trunk-circumference at base of 30 to 
60 feet; whilst average trees are 150 feet high clear of limbs 
and 5 or 6 feet in diameter. These splendid forest giants 
are greatly prized for their strength and durability, and form 
a valuable commercial staple. Great compact masses of this 
fir are encountered on Vancouver Island and upon the main- 
land coast of the province, and in the interior upon the 
Selkirk and Gold Mountains, west of the Rockies. North 
of 51° the Douglas fir gives place to the red cedar, the yellow 
cedar, hemlock and spruce, which, with the white spruce and 
the cypress, are other arboreal inhabitants of British 
Columbia greatly in demand in the world's markets. Timber 
merchants, or "lumbermen," as the American term has it, are 
rivalling each other — whether from eastern Canada or the 
United States — in securing these splendid forests of standing 
timber — a fact upon which I shall comment later in consider- 
ing the "imperial" view of these fine assets. The total 
"lumber cut" has more than doubled itself in the last few 
years, whilst the timber licences issued were ten times greater 
in 1908 than in 1904, showing the great demand for 
timber, of which prices have doubled in that period. There 
p 2 



212 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

are numerous saw-mills in various parts of the province, 
representing capital invested to about two million sterling. 
The allied industry of pulp production, for paper-making, 
has begun to forge ahead in British Columbia, and the 
geographical advantages of the region may be expected to 
augment this in the future. With enormous timber reserves 
on the coast, or on the lakes and rivers leading thereto, afford- 
ing the cheapest means of transport to her deep-water 
harbours, the province might command half the world as 
a market either for wood pulp or for manufactured paper. 
Before her on the other side of the Pacific Ocean which she 
faces are the developing markets of the Orient — Asia, Japan, 
Australia; whilst far to the southward on the Great Pacific 
Coast are the expanding republics of Peru and Chile, which 
(except in the south) are without resources of timber on the 
Pacific Coast. For, whilst British Columbia, Oregon, Cali- 
fornia and parts of Mexico have forests down to the ocean's 
verge, the littoral of South America is not only treeless, for 
stretches of thousands of miles, but even verdureless. 

The great areas of first-class building timber, the finest the 
world still contains (for the world's timber is rapidly going 
into smoke or decay), is a veritable imperial heritage, about 
which I beg to make, a little later, some imperial comment. 

Of food supply for herself and other markets in sea and 
river fish the province has very valuable resources, and 
boasts that she even beats Nova Scotia as a fish-producing 
region ; advancing now to the first place in the Dominion 
of Canada. Salmon, halibut, herrings, cod, sturgeon, trout 
and a variety of other fish, to the value of two million sterling, 
are produced in this bountiful region. British Columbia 
salmon are highly considered, and numerous ships and thou- 
sands of hands are employed in the fisheries. The canning 
industry is important, as much as one and a half million 
cases of salmon (of forty-eight pounds) being the output for 
good years in the canneries. Fishing as a sport offers many 
attractions : added to the scenic beauties of this part of the 
Pacific littoral. 

As the traveller, from the comfort of his Pullman car on 
that wonderful railroad, the Canadian Pacific Line, traverses 
in the limit of a day and a half the three ranges of the 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 



213 



Rockies, the Selkirks and the Cascades, the grandest moun- 
tain ranges of North America with their snow-capped peaks, 
and profound cafions through which the iron way is laid, 
he will gather the idea that British Columbia is only a land 
of mountain and flood, of glacier, gorge and beetling preci- 
pice, where Nature has not yet prepared her valleys and her 
plains for her human tenants and their agricultural opera- 
tions. This idea will be natural but wrong. What has 
happened is that the constructors of the Canadian Pacific 
Railway pushed this stupendous highway by the shortest 
possible route to the Pacific Coast, crossing whatever barriers 
might be encountered rather than making detours through 
regions of more economical possibilities. Thus the fertile 
valleys and the plains in this great province are rarely seen 
from the railway, and the g-limpses of arable land which are 
so encountered do not offset the impression gained of a 
country like a sea of mountains. Of scenic wonders along 
the route day after day will offer their varied and stupendous 
panorama — mountain scenery such as no part of the United 
States can show, not even saving the beautiful Sierra Nevadas 
of California to the south, which I have described elsewhere. 

Among and beyond these volcanic-built or glacier-sculp- 
tured heights and chasms, however, are rich valleys of 
boundless agricultural possibilities, intersecting the country 
from north to south — lands for ranches and farms, and dairies 
and orchards such as could supply a population of millions of 
people of British with food products. Thus in the trail of 
the miner and the lumberman come the tillers of the soil, 
the real agents of food supply ; and the value of land, formerly 
almost unconsidered, is rising rapidly now. 

British Columbia is divided for purposes of Government 
and for topographical reasons into eight districts, whose 
names and areas are as follows — 



Kootenay (East and West) 


15 million acres 


Yale ' 


i5i 




Lillooet 


10 




Westminster . . . . 


5 




Cariboo . . . . , 


96 




Cassiar .... 


100 




Comox (Mainland) 


4 




Vancouver Island 


io| 





214 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

The character and resources of these districts are very 
varied, and I will quote from the publication made by direc- 
tion of the Minister of the Interior of the Dominion Govern- 
ment at Ottawa, descriptive thereof — 

KooTENAY District (or, "The Kootenays") forms the south- 
eastern portion of British Columbia, west of the summit of 
the Rocky Mountains, and is drained by the Columbia and 
Kootenay rivers. East Kootenay contains a large extent of 
agricultural land, much of which requires irrigation, but 
suited to fruit-growing and all kinds of grain and vegetables. 
Most of the land is well timbered, and lumbering is, next to 
mining, the principal industry. There are considerable areas 
of fertile land in West Kootenay, a good deal of which is 
being utilized for fruit-growing. The fame of the Kootenay 
mines is world-wide, the mountains being rich in gold, silver, 
copper and lead, and the eastern valleys are underlaid with 
coal and petroleum. British Columbia mining has reached 
its highest development in Kootenay, and, as a consequence, 
many prosperous cities and towns have been established. 
The development of the Crow's Nest coal-fields and the 
revival in metalliferous mining has caused a rapid increase in 
population, especially in East Kootenay, where it is estimated 
to have more than doubled since 1901. 

Yale.— Lying west of the Kootenays is the splendid Yale 
district, rich in minerals and timber and possessing the 
largest area of agricultural land in Southern British 
Columbia. It includes the rich valleys of the Okanagan, 
Nicola, Similkameen, Kettle River, and North and South 
Thompson and the Boundary, and has been appropriately 
named "the Garden of British Columbia." The main line of 
the Canadian Pacific passes nearly through the centre of 
Yale, from east to west, while the Okanagan branch and lake 
steamers give access to the southern portions. New branch 
lines are projected and some are in course of construction, 
which will serve to open up a very large mining and agricul- 
tural area. Cattle-raising on a large scale has been one of 
the chief industries, but many of the ranges are now divided 
into small parcels which are being eagerly bought by fruit- 
growers and small farmers. The district is very rich in 
minerals and coal, but development has been delayed by lack 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 215 

of transportation facilities — a drawback which will soon be 
removed. The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway will traverse 
this region. 

LiLLiooET. — In natural features Lilliooet resembles Yale. 
It is largely a pastoral country, well adapted to dairying, 
cattle-raising and fruit-growing. Placer and hydraulic 
mining is carried on successfully and quartz-mining is 
making fair progress, but railway communication is needed 
to ensure profitable operation. 

Westminster. — One of the richest agricultural districts 
of the province is New Westminster, which includes all 
the fertile valley of the Lower Fraser. The climate is mild, 
with much rain in winter. The timber is very heavy 
and underbrush thick. Westminster is the centre of the 
great lumbering and salmon-canning industries. Its agricul- 
tural advantages are unexcelled in the province, heavy crops 
of hay, grain and roots being the rule, and fruit-growing to 
perfection and in profusion. A great deal of the land in 
the Fraser Valley has been reclaimed by diking. 

Cariboo and Cassiar. — The great northern districts of 
Cariboo and Cassiar are practically unexplored and 
undeveloped, although in the early days parts of them were 
invaded by a great army of placer miners, who recovered 
about 50 million dollars in gold from the creeks and benches. 
Hydraulic mining on a large scale is being carried on by 
several wealthy companies at different points in the district 
with fair success, and individual miners and dredging com- 
panies are doing well in Atlin. Recently large deposits of 
gold and silver quartz w^ere found on Portland Canal and 
on Windy Arm, which give promise of rich returns. Large 
coal measures have been located on the Telqua River and at 
other points, and copper ore is found in many localities. The 
country is lightly timbered and promises in time to become 
an important cattle-raising and agricultural district, as there 
are many fertile valleys, which are attracting settlers. In 
the southern part of Cariboo, along the main wagon road, 
are several flourishing ranches, • producing good crops of 
grain and vegetables which, with the cattle raised, find a 
ready market in the mining camps. The Grank Trunk 
Pacific will traverse this district. 



216 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

CoMOX. — The northern portion of Vancouver Island and 
a portion of the opposite mainland is known as Comox 
District. It is very rich in minerals and timber, and there 
is considerable fertile land between Comox Bay and Campbell 
River, a distance of thirty-five miles — the Esquimalt and 
Nanaimo Railway Company is prospecting a line of railway 
through this fine district. The deeply indented coast-line 
and the adjacent islands afford fine opportunities for the 
fishing industry, which is now being developed on a con- 
siderable scale. Although sparsely populated as yet, perhaps 
no other area of British Columbia of similar size contains 
so much and varied natural wealth, represented in timber, 
minerals, fish and agricultural land, the last-named, though 
considerable in aggregate, being, comparatively speaking, the 
least important. Many of the islands contain good land, and 
in the vicinity of Comox there are some excellent stretches ; 
while north from Seymour Narrows to the head of the island 
there are considerable areas which, if drained and cultivated, 
would make valuable cattle ranges and meadows. The Grand 
Trunk Pacific Railway will traverse this mainland to its ter- 
minus at Prince Rupert. 

Vancouver Island.— Not the least important portion 
of British Columbia is Vancouver Island, which, from 
its great wealth of natural resources and its commanding 
position on the Pacific Coast, is fast becoming one of the 
richest and most prosperous districts of the province. Coal- 
mining and lumbering are the chief industries, and fishing, 
quartz-mining, copper-smelting, ship-building, whaling, and 
other branches are being rapidly developed. The Esquimalt 
and Nanaimo Railway, running from Victoria to Wellington, 
serves a section of country which it w^ould be difficult to 
surpass anywhere in the world for beauty of scenery and 
natural wealth. There are prosperous agricultural communi- 
ties along the railway and in the Comox District, and several 
mines are being developed. There is quite a large area of 
agricultural land, but it is heavily timbered and costly to clear 
by individual effort. The Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railw^ay 
Company has arranged for the clearing of large blocks of 
its land grant (which consists of about 1,500,000 acres) and it 
is expected, through the exercise of economical methods in 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 217 

removing the timber, that the company will be enabled to 
sell the cleared land to settlers at moderate prices. 

Included in the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway Co.'s 
Grant are large areas of the finest timber in the world, con- 
sisting mainly of the Douglas fir, cedar and western hemlock. 
This timber is in great demand and is being rapidly bought 
up by eastern lumbermen. The agricultural possibilities of 
Vancouver Island are only limited by the area of cultivable 
land. All the grains, grasses, roots and vegetables grow to 
perfection and yield heavilv. Island strawberries are the 
choicest grown in the province, and all other small fruits are 
prolific and of first quality. Apples, pears, plums, prunes 
and cherries grow luxuriantly, while the more tender fruits, 
peaches, apricots, nectarines, grapes, etc., attain perfection 
in the southern districts when carefully cultivated. 

The cities and towns of British Columbia are growing, 
and offer much of interest to intending settlers. The follow- 
ing particulars are taken from the Government pamphlet — 

The principal cities in British Columbia are : Victoria, 
Vancouver, New Westminster, Nanaimo, Nelson, Rossland, 
Ladysmith, Revelstoke, Kamloops, Fernie, Kaslo, Grank 
Forks, Greenwood, Trail, Cranbrook, Vernon, Armstrong, 
Enderby. 

Victoria is the capital, and is beautifullv situated on the 
southern extremity of Vancouver Island. It is a celebrated 
tourist resort, noted for its superb climate, its magnificent 
scenery and imposing buildings. Population about 35,000. 
Vancouver is the commercial metropolis of the mainland. It 
is situated on Burrard Inlet. It is the Pacific terminus of 
the C.P.R. main line, and is one of the most enterprising 
cities on the Pacific Coast, its growth being phenomenal. 
Population about 70,000. New Westminster is situated on 
the Eraser River, and was the former capital. It is the centre 
of the salmon-canning industry, and is besides a depot for a 
fine agricultural district near at hand. Population about 
10,000. Nanaimo is the great coal centre of Vancouver 
Island. It is about seventy-two miles from Victoria, on the 
east coast of the island. It has also become the centre of an 
extensive herring industry. Its population is about 9,000. 
Rossland, the mining centre of West Kootenay, has grown 



218 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

in ten years from an obscure mining camp to a well-ordered, 
substantial city of about 5,500. Rossland's mines are famed 
the world over, and their development is proving their 
permanency. Nelson, situated on the west arm of Kootenay 
Lake, has a population of 7,000. It is a well-laid-out and 
solidly built town, the principal buildings being of brick and 
stone. It is the judicial centre of Kootenay and an important 
wholesale business point. Kaslo is an important trade centre 
on the west shore of Kootenay Lake. It is supplied with 
good stores, hotels, churches and schools, waterworks, 
electric light and telephones. The population is about 
1,800. Ladysmith, on Oyster Harbour, east coast of Van- 
couver Island, is one of the youngest towns in the province. 
It is the shipping port for the adjacent Extension coal mines, 
and the transfer point for through freight between the island 
and the mainland. Kamloops is the distributing point for 
a very large agricultural, ranching and mining country, and 
is the chief cattle-market of British Columbia. It is also the 
centre of a big lumbering district. Its population is about 
2,000. Revelstoke, on the main line of the Canadian Pacific 
Railway, is a railway divisional point and the gateway to 
West Kootenay. It is the centre of a good mining and 
lumbering district. The population is about 2,500. Fernie 
is a coal town on the Crow's Nest Pass Railway. There are 
1,500 coke ovens at Fernie, which supply fuel to the Kootenay 
and Boundary smelters. The population is 3,500. Grand 
Forks, the chief town of the Boundary District (population 
2,500) is situated at the junction of the North Fork with the 
main Kettle River. It is the site of the Granby smelter, the 
largest plant of its kind in the province. Greenwood, twenty- 
two miles west of Grank Forks, is the centre of a rich mining 
district. The population is 2,500. Trail, on the Columbia 
River, nine miles from Rossland, is the centre of the smelt- 
ing industry in West Kootenay. The population is estimated 
at 2,000. Cranbrook, a divisional point of the Crow's Nest 
Railway, is situated in the fertile valley which lies between 
the Selkirk and Rocky Mountains. It is the principal 
lumbering point in East Kootenay. Population, 2,500. 
Vernon is the centre and supply depot for the Okanagan 
District, and is surrounded by a splendid farming, cattle and 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 219 

fruit country. The population is about i,8oo. Armstrong, 
thirty-two miles south of Sicamous Junction, is an important 
lumbering and flour-milling point. 

It will be seen that British Columbia offers positive 
advantages for the intending settler, as land may be obtained 
and cultivated in small areas; and indeed the burden of the 
advice given to intending settlers in the country, by Govern- 
ment agencies, might be expressed in the Canadian couplet 
of— 

" A little purse well filled. 
A little farm well tilled." 

Fruit farming is especially held up as an advisable pursuit. 
Perhaps the successful fruit-growers of this Pacific-facing 
imperial garden will recollect the poor and the middle class 
of old England casting longing eyes for half the year at the 
wretched specimens of fruits in green-grocers' windows — 
apples at sixpence a pound and nothing else to be had. In 
Great Britain, fruit is still a luxury of the rich. In this 
connection the following extract from a speech by the 
Governor-General of Canada, Earl Grey, to the fruit-growers 
is of marked interest — 

"Fruit-growing in your province has acquired the distinc- 
tion of being a beautiful art as well as a most profitable 
industry. After a maximum wait of five years, I understand 
a settler may look forward with reasonable certainty to a net 
income of from v$ioo to $150 per acre, after all expenses of 
cultivation have been paid. Gentlemen, here is a state of 
things which appears to offer the opportunity of living under 
such ideal conditions as struggling humanity has onlv 
succeeded in reaching in one or two of the most favoured 
spots upon the earth. There are thousands of families living 
in England to-day, families of refinement, culture and dis- 
tinction, families such as you would welcome among you 
with both arms, who would be only too glad to come 
out and occuov a log hut on five acres of a pear or apple 
orchard in full bearing, if they could do so at a reasonable 
cost." 

It is a marked condition of nature upon the lands tribu- 
tary to the Great Pacific Coast that the best specimens 
of her animal world are found in the more rigorous regions. 



220 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Thus the Pacific slopes of Peru, or indeed of Mexico and 
California, are without the notable fauna encountered further 
to the north. British Columbia is deserving of the 
hackneyed expression of a "sportsman's paradise," which 
has been applied to it, as is indeed the whole of northern 
Canada. The monarch of the Canadian forests, the moose, 
is an inhabitant of the Dominion from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific and from north to south of the British Columbian 
boundary line. The full-grown moose weighs more than 
a thousand pounds ; he is a noble specimen of nature's 
northern fauna, and has ever attracted great hunters to his 
habitat. British Columbia and the Yukon are famous as 
producing the largest specimens in the world. 

As to the caribou, it is extremely wild and difficult to 
approach, and exceedingly swift of foot, and is dowered with 
a remarkable power of resistance. The barren frozen swamps 
of the north form its home, where it encounters the lichens 
which are its natural fodder ; and the full-grown animal 
attains a height up to five and a half feet, and may weigh 
up to six hundred pounds. Famous for its migratory habits 
is the caribou, travelling in bands of twenty to one hundred; 
and indeed in eastern Canada enormous herds of these 
splendid beasts are encountered. Other famous quarry of 
the hunter in these northern regions is the elk, many of 
which are found in Vancouver Island, Kootenay, and other 
parts of British Columbia. The famous bighorn, also, or 
mountain sheep, which mav be looked upon now as the 
sportsman's most valued prize, and whose flesh is considered 
delicious eating, is extremely difficult to bag. Its extra- 
ordinary power of traversing the most inaccessible and craggv 
places have been set forth previously in the chapter upon 
California ; and to secure a pair of the massive, wide-spread- 
ing horns of this noble animal — a trophy much prized — a 
hard day's work and a straight shot are the prime conditions. 
Once those vigilant eyes have discerned the hunter it is 
impossible to approach the mountain sheep, and he can 
travel over his native crags in five minutes a distance it will 
take the hunter hours to cover, be he the best of moun- 
taineers. The Rocky Mountain goat is another singular 
animal which makes its home among the stupendous peaks 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 221 

of the Canadian Rockies. He is the most daring of moun- 
taineers, a brave and fearless fighter with his sharp horns 
and pointed hoofs, besting the best dog which may attacl^ 
him ; whilst his uncanny beard gives him a weird semi- 
human aspect. Even more difficult to obtain is the musk 
ox, whose habitat is in the far north within the Arctic circle. 
British Columbia and the Canadian Rocky Mountains are 
now the main home of the formidable grizzly bear, as this 
splendid animal is fast disappearing from California and the 
United States, Yet the grizzly, despite his terrible claws, 
generally runs at first from man, and like the wolf has learned 
that man is an enemy to be feared. The black bear is a 
harmless creature, and indeed is dubbed an arrant coward, 
and is plentiful enough all over Canada. Wolves have 
increased in number in Canada. The grey wolf hunts for 
big game in packs, doing much execution, as he also does 
among the ranchmen's stock. He is a large-boned, strong 
animal, long-headed, weighing up to eighty pounds, and 
every province of Canada offers a bounty for their scalps, 
and systematic hunting on snow-shoes has become a regular 
sport. Of felidcE the puma, or cougar, also termed the 
panther, abounds, and indeed seems to be increasing in the 
Canadian Rockies and British Columbia. Antelopes, ducks, 
grouse and other small game abound in this best-dowered 
province. And of hunting in general, of fishing, camping 
and canoeing British Columbia is the veritable home. 
A splendid booklet on the subject is issued by the Canadian 
Pacific Railway Company. 

Victoria, the capital of British Columbia, is beautifully 
situated on the south-east end of the island of Vancouver, 
and in its surroundings and climatic conditions has no equal 
in the Dominion, it is generally conceded. The beginning 
of Victoria's history was in 1846, when, under the name of 
Camosun, it was a trading port of the Hudson Bay Com- 
pany, and twelve years later it was borne on the wave of the 
gold excitement into prominence. Then its commerce and 
population rapidly increased : its present population being 
some thirty thousand. Whilst the type of architecture of 
Canada as a whole cannot be said to be attractive, for it is 
stamped with the inevitable air of utility and commercialism 



222 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

of the Anglo-American Age, nevertheless Victoria is sub- 
stantially built, with good business blocks of stone and brick, 
and a Parliament House which is considered one of the finest 
examples of governmental edifices in Anglo-America. The 
houses of the wealthy citizens are generally surrounded by 
lawns and gardens, showing the taste and refinement of the 
people. The environs of the city are of marked beauty. 
Facing the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the long entrance to the 
British Columbian harbour and to the American waters of 
Puget Sound, is the natural park of Beacon Hill, from which 
the snow-capped heights of the Olympian Range in Wash- 
ington, and the great dome of Mount Baker, form the back- 
ground to a landscape which is much admired by the thou- 
sands of tourists who visit Victoria from all parts of the 
world. Besides being a residential place, the capital is 
important as a business and shipping centre. It is the first 
port of call for the great liners of the trans-Pacific service to 
Asia and the Orient, and the coast' steamers for the north, 
and for the great freight vessels which journey from Europe 
via Cape Horn. Not far away is Esquimalt, forming the 
western suburbs of the city, with a fine harbour and fortifica- 
tions which are among the strongest in the Empire. 
Esquimalt was the naval station for the British North Pacific 
fleet, but except for one or two ships the fleet has been with- 
drawn. Indeed, it is a noticeable fact all down this Great 
Pacific Coast, wherever we may journey, that the white 
ensign of Britain is regrettably non-conspicuous. Esqui- 
malt has now been taken over by the Canadian Govern- 
ment as a Dominion naval base, and with recent Imperial 
developments and the creating of a Canadian navy will doubt- 
less become of great importance as a centre of sea-power. 

The commercial capital of British Columbia, and the city 
with the largest population (eighty thousand), is Vancouver, 
upon the splendid land-locked harbour. It is also the 
terminus of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and from this 
great seaport of the Empire the fine Empress Line steamers 
sail for Australia and Asiatic ports, forming the complement 
by sea of the Canadian Pacific by land. From Vancouver 
the railway system of Canada and North America stretches 
eastwardly to the Atlantic Ocean, from three thousand miles 



\ 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 223 

away, and southwards to the confines of Mexico and Guate- 
mala ; whilst the steamship lines give passage to Panama 
and all the ports of North and South America. The people 
of British Columbia are of marked British character and 
descent, as observed elsewhere; and in common with the 
Canadians generally, they differ from the character of the 
Americans in a marked degree. Notwithstanding that the 
boundary between the two countries of Canada and the 
United States, in the "west, is only the imaginary geographical 
one of a parallel of latitude, law and order are much more 
respected, and life and property safer, on the Canadian than 
on the American side. The lynchings, bank-holding-up, 
and train robberies of the United States are scarcely ever 
heard of as occurring in Canada; for the Canadians have 
inherited in a much greater degree the British characteristic 
of holding the sacredness of human life. Yet both nations 
have much to learn from each other. Both are conquering 
for civilization those splendid new worlds fraught with such 
unending possibilities, working on steadfastly each in their 
allotted portion of the vineyard, in strenuous good-fellowship. 



XI 

BRITISH COLUMBIA : A BRITISH HERITAGE 

In the foregoing chapter we have observed the varied and 
truly remarkable range of topography and natural resources 
of this Pacific-fronting region which has fallen to the 
dominion of the British people upon this great coast. Its 
mountainous character and its peculiarities of healthy climate 
give rise to varied and attractive natural conditions which, 
unlike the regions of Spanish-America generally, render it a 
fit home for a people of white imperial race, a counterpart of 
their progenitors in the far-off British Islands in similar 
latitudes but distant meridian. 

Let us examine British Columbia from an "imperial" 
point of view ; considering first of all its mighty railway 
systems — existing and building. 

If there are two railways wdiich should appeal to the 
imagination of the traveller in general and to the British 
citizen in particular, they are those two great trans-continental 
routes from the Atlantic to the Pacific littorals of the 
Dominion of Canada ; routes of which one, the famous 
Canadian Pacific, has been in operation for a quarter of a 
century, and the other, the Grank Trunk Pacific, being 
pushed westward with all possible expedition to its com- 
pletion in igii. He who cares anything about the British 
Empire should recollect the great geographical and 
economical importance of these giant railways ; and I will 
endeavour, briefly, to describe their salient points. 

The Canadian Pacific Railway is 3000 miles from shore 
to shore; its conception and construction in the face of 
geographical and financial obstacles must always lead in the 
romance of history of railway building; its existence is of 
such importance as a public work as is only equalled in 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 225 

magnitude by such works as the Suez and Panama Canals. 
Mainly, what did it do? It linked together and brought 
into federation the enormous provinces of British America, 
tying them together with its steel ligature into the largest 
political entity in the New World — an area vaster than that 
of the vast United States, its southern neighbour; and the 
Dominion of Canada is the "biggest thing in creation" on 
that side of the globe, to borrow the American simile. "We 
all know how the Canadian Pacific Railway helped to make 
a nation," said the Prince of Wales at the Guildhall. More; 
here was the unplanted granary of the Empire, the most 
extensive area of land suitable for wheat-production remain- 
ing in the world — and wheat-growing, let us remember, is 
synonymous with civilization. These monstrous, fertile, 
unoccupied plains may be looked upon now as tributary, in 
great measure, to the Great Pacific Coast. It is, moreover, 
an imperial route to the Far East ; to Asia, Australia, Africa, 
India. Four hundred miles of unknown land north of Lake 
Superior ; a gigantic wilderness, considered uncultivable there ; 
twelve hundred miles of uninhabited prairie; six hundred 
miles of the mighty barrier of the Rocky Mountains which 
cuts off the Great Plains from the Pacific slope — all this had 
to be surveyed and built, from the relatively small existing 
eastern system. But the obstacles created by nature are 
not generally more serious than those put in the way by man 
— that is man as represented by the financiers who hold the 
purse-strings. Whenever you come, kind reader, to the 
capitalists of London with a proposal to build a railway, you 
will find the axiom to be true that "corporations have no 
souls," nor have they, as a rule, much imagination. For the \ 
first thing they ask — it is not an unnatural question — is as \. 
to what is the population of the region to be traversed. Well, ^ 
in the case of the Canadian Pacific there was no population 
worth mentioning in the great region of the west which it 
would cross — a mere bagatelle of fifty thousand white people 
on the fringe of the Vancouver coast. What did the London 
niggards reply when approached for money ? — They said that 
it spelt bankruptcy for the Dominion of Canada, which was 
backing it ! And as for the London papers, Truth said 
(Sept. 1881) that it would as soon credit a scheme "to 
Q 



226 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

subscribe hard cash for the utiHzation of icebergs, and that 
Canadians must know it is never hkely to yield a single 
red cent of interest on the money sunk in it." Another 
"imperial" statement of the same journal was, "This 
Dominion is, in short, a fraud all through, and is destined 
to burst up, like any other fraud " ! For these asseverations, 
however, Truth made amends long ago.^ Even a Canadian 
opposition journal, in the country itself, indulged in the 
picturesque asseveration that the line "would never pay for 
^ its own axle-grease " ! But the soul of Canada had already 
come into being, and the Canadian people themselves pro- 
vided twenty-five million dollars in subsidies for the company, 
and gave it an empire in land grants of twenty-five million 
acres, and more than six hundred miles of railway already 
built in older Canada. The result of this was the world- 
record in railway building. Can you imagine, good reader, 
the building of six miles a day of new railway ? This was 
done on the prairie section, and the last spike of the line 
was driven, four years before the contract time, on July 24, 
1886, by a man whose name is now among the most famous 
of empire-builders.^ To-day the railway embodies more 
than ten thousand miles of line; whilst the "axle-grease" has 
been paid for easily in the annual earnings, which amounted 
last year to more than seventy-one million dollars. So were 
the stick-in-the-mud financiers and black prophets of London 
confounded ! 

Of the scenic wonders of this line it would not be possible 
to dwell at great length here, but they have been well 
described in many books and pamphlets dealing with British 
Columbia. The line traverses the great ranges of the Rocky 
Mountains, the Selkirks and others, as described elsewhere, 
and crosses the three Canadian Cordilleran systems at two 
culminating elevations of 5,299, and 4,308 feet above sea-level 
respectively, whilst its maximum gradient is 237 feet to the 
mile. Elsewhere I have given some particulars of com- 
parative elevations of the highest points of trans-Cordilleran 
railways of the Great Pacific Coast of North and South 
America, and it will be seen how favourably the Canadian 

^ Joiirnal of the Royal Society of Arts ^ June 1909 : paper by Mr. Obed 
Smith. ^ Lord Strathcona. 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 227 

Pacific compares with these, in point of low altitude of its 
summit-passes. 

The trade of British Columbia, and its sea-borne import- 
ance and value to this region of the coast are growing rapidly, 
and are of much interest to the student of these sunset lands. 
I will quote from particulars published by the Canadian 
Pacific Railway Company in this connection, as follows — 

"The trade of British Columbia is the largest in the world 
per head of population. What may it become in the future 
when the resources of the province are generally realized 
and actively developed? In 1904 the imports amounted to 
$12,079,088, and the exports totalled $16,536,328. In 1906 
the imports were $15,748,579 and the exports $22,817,578, or 
a total increase in the trade of the province of ten million 
dollars in two years. The leading articles of export are fish, 
coal, gold, silver, copper, lead, timber, masts, spars, furs 
and skins, whale products, fish oil, hops and fruit. A large 
portion of the salmon, canned and pickled, goes to Great 
Britain, Eastern Canada, the United States, Hawaiian 
Islands, Australia and Japan ; the United States consumes 
a large share of the exported coal, and immense quantities 
of lumber are shipped to Great Britain, South Africa, China, 
Japan, India, South America, and Australia. A large inter- 
provincial trade with Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and 
the Eastern Provinces is rapidly developing, the fruit grown 
in British Columbia being largely shipped to the Prairie 
Provinces, where it finds a good market. With the shipping 
facilities offered by the Canadian Pacific Railway and its 
magnificent fleets of steamships running to Japan, China, 
New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii, backed by her natural 
advantages of climate and geographical position, British 
Columbia's already large trade is rapidly increasing. The 
tonnage of vessels employed in the coasting trade is 8,488,778 
tons, and of sea-going vessels carrying cargoes to and from 
the ports of the province, 4,405,052 tons. The Canadian 
Pacific has two main lines, the Canadian Pacific Railway and 
the Crow's Nest Pass Railway, and several branches and steam- 
boat connections on the inland lakes, besides its large fleet 
of ocean-going and coasting steamers. The railway mileage 
of the province is about 1,600 miles, being one mile of track 
Q 2 



228 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

to each 250 square miles of area. The prevaiHng prosperity 
of British Columbia is due in no small measure to the pro- 
gressive policy of the railway, which has in so many instances 
anticipated local requirements by extending branch lines to 
isolated mining camps and timber districts where develop- 
ment was being retarded for lack of transportation facilities. 
These branches are being steadily extended into new terri- 
tory, the most notable being the Nicola, Kamloops and 
Similkameen Railway from Spence's Bridge south-eastward. 
This important line is now operated as far as Nicola, giving 
access to new coal mines recently opened, and to an extensive 
territory rich in coal, copper, gold and silver, as well as 
agricultural grazing and timber lands. Besides operating 
passenger and freight steamers on the Kootenay, Arrow and 
Okanagan lakes, the Canadian Pacific Railway maintains a 
large fleet of ocean-going and coasting craft, many of the ships 
being models of their class. The coast fleet, including fifteen 
vessels, plies between coast points from Victoria, Vancouver, 
Seattle, Nanaimo, Ladysmith, Crofton and Comox to 
Northern British Columbia and Alaskan ports. The Royal 
Mail Empress liners, world-famed for their speed, comfort 
and safety, make regular voyages to and from British 
Columbia ports and Japan and China, while the Canadian- 
Australian liners give a splendid service to Hawaii, Fiji, New 
Zealand and Australia. The Canadian Pacific Railway 
Company's Pacific fleet is being constantly increased by the 
addition of new vessels, some of which are built locally, 
while others are constructed in British ship-yards — several 
ships are now on the stocks, freighters and fast passenger 
boats, to meet the growing requirements of the service." 

The Grand Trunk Pacific is the other stupendous railway 
undertaking. It is to be recollected that the line just 
described traverses the southern part of the Dominion and 
emerges to its terminus on the Pacific Coast at the southern- 
most seaport of British Columbia, near the United States 
boundary, leaving untapped the enormous region to the 
north. Whilst, therefore, that giant was perfecting its 
strength the eyes of the Canadian people were looking north- 
wards, and the conception of the Grand Trunk Pacific came. 
Again the Canadians gave their support. The line of the 




^ a 



C Q 

•:5 






BRITISH COLUMBIA 229 

wheat-producing zone had been pushed northward to regions 
never dreamed of in earlier years; new and inexhaustible 
wealth of minerals in districts which owed their being to 
the Rocky Mountains were found to exist; vast forests for 
timber and for pulp were explored where the white man had 
never trod before; and the sneers of those who had scoffed 
at the birth of this new giant of the railway world were soon 
turned to a desire to share in its promise and its future. 
The Grand Trunk Pacific was incorporated by Act of Parlia- 
ment in 1903, and under agreement with the Canadian 
Government its purpose is to complete a line across Canada 
■ — a great part is already built — with an estimated length of 
3,600 miles, with huge branches running up to Hudson's 
Bay in central Canada, and to the Yukon and Alaska in 
Western Canada ; the whole forming a project which has 
never been surpassed in magnitude. 

Population ? — Well, the financiers did not say so much 
about it this time. Immigrants are pouring into the country 
from Britain, Europe and the United States (which latter 
fact I beg leave to comment upon later), and the first issue 
of the bonds in London for the construction of the railway 
were applied for ten times over ! 

The route of this great "all-red" empire-linking railway, 
whose building and future fire the imagination to contem- 
plate, debouches on to the Great Pacific Coast, passing 
through the middle of British Columbia to its terminus at 
the seaport of Prince Rupert. "Prince Rupert! I never 
heard of it ! " you might well exclaim, good reader, with 
almost every one else. No one had ever heard of Prince 
Rupert until the engineers of this great undertaking examined 
it and decided upon it as a terminus. Yet it is a good 
harbour, on a coast which, as British Columbia, does not 
possess many favourable ship-havens; so good a harbour 
that it possesses some of the j^reatest advantages for ocean 
shipping that can be found along the whole earth-encircling 
line of the Great Pacific Coast. This port of Prince Rupert 
is 550 miles north of Vancouver and 50 miles south of the 
southern extremity of Alaska — of that part of Alaska which 
absurdly shuts ofi^ the sea from the upper part of British 
Columbia. Here has been laid the foundation of a great 



230 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

future — city, streets, squares, houses, hotels; a city and an 
emporium and entrepot which its creators say — and we 
may beHeve their prediction will be verified— is destined to 
become the greatest wheat-shipping centre in the world. 

It is to be recollected, in this connection, that the coast 
of North America has been getting, ever since we left it at 
Panama, farther and farther towards Asia. We are nearer 
the upper part of the globe, and the meridians have 
approached each other considerably : Prince Rupert being 
near the 54th parallel. Consequently this new trans-conti- 
nental line will possess the shortest route to Asia, effecting 
a saving of two days' sail in the journey from Liverpool or 
Atlantic-American ports to Asiatic ports. Into the con- 
struction and economy of the line another factor enters — 
the important one of the crossing of the Rocky Mountains 
and its determining gradients. A thorough exploration of 
the Rocky Mountain passes was made by the engineers, 
resulting in the selection of the Yellowhead Pass with the 
remarkably low elevation above sea-level of only 3,712 feet, 
giving a maximum gradient of only twenty-six feet per mile. 

The possibilities of haulage and commerce by this new 
route have been well set forth by the president of the Grand 
Trunk Pacific, and its importance to the region of the Grand 
Pacific Coast, and I will quote from this as bearing strongly 
upon the subject. The remarks are tinged, to a certain 
extent, with natural enthusiasm for that particular line — an 
"imperial" enthusiasm, however. 

"Bear in mind, please, that railroads are not now built 
as the earlier trans-continental roads were built, up hill and 
down dale, on an unballasted roadbed of mud. What we 
require to-day, and what the travelling public means to have, 
is a first-class roadbed with such low gradients and wide 
curvatures that our trains can be run at very high speed with 
perfect safety. We carry our road from Winnipeg over the 
Rockies to Prince Rupert with a maximum gradient of 
twenty-one feet to the mile going west, and twenty-six to the 
mile going east. The immense economy in hauling freights 
with gradients so remarkable, every railway man must 
recognize. We shall be able to put two thousand tons of 
freight into Prince Rupert from Winnipeg behind a single 




'4 

Qi 

H 

a 
z 

O 

w 

fa 
o 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 231 

engine. We expect that our easy gradients, which are due 
not only or chiefly to our ' generous expenditures,' but to 
our possession of the Yellowhead Pass through the Rockies, 
will in a few years twist around a great portion of the wheat 
export trade of the North-west, and with the opening of the 
Panama Canal in 1914 send wheat to Europe (let alone Asia) 
by way of the Pacific. At present the wheat crop is either 
hurried to the ports on the great lakes, Duluth, Fort William, 
and Chicago, during the few weeks between threshing and 
the closing of lake navigation in November, or it is held up 
for six months in elevators at a considerable cost, or again, 
if it is carried through to the eastern seaboard in winter, 
when the St. Lawrence route is closed by ice, the long haul 
through heavy snows makes the operation difficult, costly, 
and even disastrous both for the railway and to the farmer. 
West-bound from Saskatchewan and Alberta to Prince 
Rupert, the grades are easy; there is very little snow in 
winter, so that when the Panama Canal opens in six years 
I look to see Prince Rupert one of the very great grain ports 
of the world. I have more than once ventured the predic- 
tion that in my lifetime we shall haul to the Pacific as much 
grain as we shall haul to the Atlantic. The volume of traffic 
coming out of the new North-west, if we may judge from the 
way settlers are already swarming in, will throw far more 
business upon our existing lines than they can possibly 
handle. The present cultivated area is but six million acres. 
As yet we have but scratched the surface. We shall require 
very shortly to do what the Canadian-Pacific is already doing 
in Manitoba, that is, double-track our road to enable us to 
handle the traffic. Thus, the diversion of a large portion of 
the far western wheat trade will advantage every section of 
our road; it will enable us to give settlers much lower rates, 
because we shall even up our loads, sending full cars both 
east and west instead of only east. While we send cattle, 
grain and minerals west to Prince Rupert, we shall haul back 
east the coal and the lumber which the settlers on that three- 
hundred-million-acre farm need." ^ 

The western division of the Grand Trunk Pacific from 
Winnipeg to the Pacific Ocean is 1,756 miles long, of which 
^ Journal of the Royal Society of Arts ^ June'1909. 



232 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the prairie section, extending to Wolf Creek, Alberta, via 
Edmonton, takes 916 miles, and the mountain section from 
that point to Prince Rupert on the coast 840 miles. The 
prairie section region has been picturesquely described as 
"Canada's Bread Basket," comprising as it does some of the 
choicest wheat-growing areas. Into this region crowds of 
capable and experienced American farmers are pouring, 
having sold out their farms in the United States. Indeed, 
both here and on the line of the Canadian Pacific the country 
is being settled up by American farmers, who have brought 
both wealth and experience into the country, and who, in 
the majority of cases, are taking the oath of British citizen- 
ship. So marked has this immigration become from below 
the border that the name of the "American Invasion" (or 
even the "American Peril") has been applied to it, and the 
views expressed that it is a menace to British nationality and 
sovereignty. Out of 147,000 immigrants admitted into 
Canada in the fiscal year closing in March iqoq, 53»ooo 
came from Great Britain, 60,000 from the United States, 
and the balance of 34,000 from continental Europe ; and 
whilst the American element predominated it can scarcely 
be said that it would swamp the British element. In the 
current year 25,000 homesteads are being taken up bv 
Americans from the United States ; and indeed a good deal 
of the best land has been acquired also by American 
syndicates. 

Now there are two points of view from which the British 
imperialist may regard this so-called American invasion, 
and the taking-up of colonial land by emigrants from con- 
tinental Europe. The first is that Canada and the British 
oversea states generally require population, and that it does 
not matter where it comes from. The second is that in 
giving awa)'^ this land the colonies are freely giving away 
what is imperial property. I have myself brought forward 
this view, and at a meeting at the Royal Colonial Institute in 
London in May IQ09, during the discussion of a paper upon 
Imperial Emigration, which was read before a large audience, 
I brought this view forward prominently. In my speech I 
submitted that "every foreigner, however worthy, who 
takes up a homestead in Canada or Australia, before every 




m 

o 
u 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 233 

British citizen is provided for, is being permitted to rob 
some equivalent British citizen of his birthright." ^ This 
might seem an extreme view, but it is to be recollected that 
these splendid lands and resources which are now being 
granted with such facility to all comers will not last for ever. 
In a short time this freehold British land will have been dis- 
p*osed of. In reply to this contention of mine the Canadian 
representative pointed out that it was quite true that 
Americans were being invited to take up land, but that "a 
large percentage of them were returned Canadians, people 
who had been in the United States from five to twenty years, 
but who had never given up allegiance to the old flag." 
There are, however, many immigrants purely Americans who 
are going in : "American farmers, anxious to secure land on 
the Canadian prairie, are now crowding into Saskatchewan 
and Alberta. So great is their number that the Dominion 
Government last month had to increase its staff of custom 
officials along the International Boundary." ^ Now this con- 
tention of mine that British oversea land should first of all 
be allotted to people of British birth, before foreigners are 
allowed to acquire it, is one which has obsessed me greatly 
during some years' travel and study of imperial conditions, 
and I published, a short time ago, a pamphlet on the sub- 
ject entitled, Your Share of Empire: A New Imperial 
Doctrine, which has had a considerable circulation. The 
"new doctrine" which I have brought forward is that the 
unoccupied lands of the Empire overseas should be con- 
sidered to be the property of the people of the Empire, and 
that a tangible share of such land should be reserved for, 
or allotted to, every inhabitant of the British Isles before 
allotments are made to people of any other race. The 
modus operandi of securing this tangible share of empire, 
or one method at least, I have expressed as follows, and I 
think the importance of the subject may warrant its quoting : 
"Let every district, town, or parish in Great Britain begin 
now and mark off a slice of land in Oversea Britain and hold 
it in perpetuity for itself; let working capital be provided 
by loan whose interest might be met by voluntary taxation 

1^ Journal of the Royal Colonial Tnstitute, June 1909, 
2 The magazine Britannia^ May 1909. 



234 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

(or in any other way), and the areas of land be worked as 
industrial enterprises for their own benefit." Thus every 
town or district throughout Britain might create its counter- 
part, its own special property, in Canada or elsewhere, and 
profit by it ; applying the profits of its working to the care 
of its people at home, reduction of taxes and abolition of 
unemployment. New centres of industry which should 
ensure work and a proper standard of life for all would be 
^ created. Would it be possible to stir Britannia from her 
apathy, from her indifferent regard of her "submerged 
tenth" and her "sweated" poor, and overcrowded dens, 
mean streets, and an appalling army of unemployed? On 
the one hand we have gangs of men marching about the 
streets proclaiming to civilization that they have nothing to 
do and nothing to eat. We have the figures of statisticians 
telling us that seven-tenths of our population of Britain come 
under the heading of "poor," and that one in fifty is a 
permanent pauper ! Great Providence ! are we a wretched 
tribe of savages, such as I have seen wresting a living from 
rocks and thorns in the desert? We are not; the Empire is 
capable of supporting all its people in plenty. We have 
great wheat plains untilled, great forests uncut, mountains 
of minerals unworked, thousands of miles of river unfished, 
and tenantless town-sites by the hundred ; whilst a large 
proportion of our imperial race rots away from insufficiency 
under the very shadow of the British forum ! Who are the 
custodians of empire ? — how can they account for their 
stewardship whilst these things be ? It is nothing but a ques- 
tion of organization and the dictates of a common humanity, 
or common sense plus the imperial spirit, to apply this 
landless man to this manless land. Wake up Britannia ! 

Greatly obsessed as I have been, and shall ever be, by 
this grave imperial matter, I brought it forward again at a 
crowded meeting of the Royal Society of Arts in May 1909,^ 
during the discussion of a paper upon Canada and British 
Columbia as a field for British investment and settlement. 
In this paper the splendid resources of the great dominions 
were well brought forward ; her minerals, forests, wheat- 
plains — everything that Providence could possibly bestow to 
1 Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, June 1909 : before quoted. 




Big Trees in vStanley Park, Vancouver, British Columbia. 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 235 

make a people prosperous. The possibilities of profits and 
dividends, the allurements for investors, capitalists, and com- 
panies were well depicted — mines, plantations, industries, all 
waiting but the touch of capital and enterprise to yield up 
profits. But not a word was said as to the possibilities for 
that huge class of British citizen whose heritage the Empire 
is equally, who have neither capital, nor initiative to estab- 
lish companies. I speak not only of the poor, but of the 
great bulk of toiling citizens whose ordinary grey horizon 
offers them nothing. I therefore took it upon myself to raise 
a single voice, and said, " I wish to lay stress on the more 
imperial side of the question ; that up to the present the 
matter has been considered only from the point of view of 
paying dividends into private pockets, and that it ought to 
be possible to make use in a practical way of these millions of 
square miles of rich territory for the millions of depressed 
citizens of Great Britain ; and that a way must be found of 
allotting some tangible * share of empire ' to all those of 
our people who require it." 

There is little obstacle to this plan except that of the 
initial expense, which a fraction on the rates would cover, 
and — the present apathy as regards such matters. Such 
centres as London, Manchester, etc., could create for them- 
selves in this way great permanent profit-producing pro- 
perties, which might, in the course of time, pay their rates for 
them and banish the condition of unemployment, poverty and 
its consequent expense, once and for ever from their midst. 

If, however, the constituted authorities were too apathetic 
to take up their share of empire, this could be done by form- 
ing Oversea Land Clubs for the purpose of acquiring 
colonial land areas. Thus, groups of ratepayers or inhabit- 
ants at home should be urged to mark off slices of territory 
in Canada or Australia, and hold them as a heritage for 
themselves and their children. Time will increase the value 
of the land, which will cost them little or nothing now. 
Capital must be obtained to inaugurate work and improve- 
ment, and valuable properties would be created, belonging 
to the people, which would yield them an income, absorb 
their unemployed, afford them an interchange of life and 
scene, and raise the status of British civilization. Wake up, 



236 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

good people ! This land will not always be available ; we 
must be asleep to let it slip through our fingers. The 
custodians of empire are letting Americans, Germans, 
Italians and anybody else take it, as fast as they can get 
rid of it. Wake up and take it yourselves ; your forefathers 
won it with their blood and energy — have you no portion in 
it? It is true that Britain has, in granting self-government 
to her colonies, given away, practically, any voice in these 
matters of land tenure there, and as far as the ownership of 
the land is concerned is somewhat in the position of the 
"unfortunate King Lear! But this need not weigh against 
action. Our Canadians and Australian kinsmen and all 
others of Britain Overseas are fast binding themselves part 
and parcel of the Empire ; their land they offer freely, it is 
only yours to up and take it. Why are you — -good British 
citizens of the lower class — why are you choosing to vegetate 
in back streets, or to sell half-yards of ribbons or pounds of 
cheese in petty shops, or addressing other men's envelopes 
in stuffy offices ; penned in close suburbs, your only recrea- 
tion the watching of a football match or other pusillanimous 
frittering away of time? Are you Englishmen? Are you 
part of the noble race of Britons who have possessed them- 
selves of a quarter of the land area of the globe, who rule a 
quarter of its people, and whose voice dominates in the 
councils of the world ? Are you of the men who have made 
modern civilization and upheld justice and right for the 
weak, and worshipped God in the pride of their race and 
power? The name of an Englishman is respected through- 
out the world — are you part of this noble race? You may 
be in name; you are not in nature if you do not rise up 
and take the opportunities Providence has bestowed upon 
you over all the nations of the world. 

Look at our glorious acres of Canada, Australia, Africa ; 
with material for food, and house, and clothing, and happi- 
ness ! Go forth ; even if you have to live in a log hut for 
a few years under those glorious Dominion skies before you 
are independent, it is better than withering in pusillanimous 
vegetating in some ill-paid job at home. Don't you know 
that you can become an independent landowner for the ask- 
ing, and that you can grow up a valuable citizen of a country 
in whose progress you may take tangible part ? Wake up, 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 237 

young men ! Club together and take up a Canadian home- 
stead, and the generation you shall call to being will rise 
up and call you blessed ! 

And you, good governors of hospitals, and payers of old 
age pensions, and exacter of poor rates ! why do you not 
acquire great slices of imperial property before it is all given 
away, and make it, by common-sense action, the basis of a 
permanent income for your institutions? Why should 
industrial success and profits go only to greedy private 
companies ? 

And mark you, good reader — ^who has had the patience to 
follow me in these exhortations — the future of our Empire 
depends to some extent upon it. A time is coming, the 
finger of evolution and circumstance points to it, when the 
people of Britain can no longer live by commerce — forty- 
five million people on a small island,— and when only those 
nations will be able to retain superiority who own vast areas 
of land for the produce of food substance. You are in the 
position of shipwrecked mariners on a raft, who will not 
recognize that the locker is emptying ! If Britain is to sur- 
vive it must be by making the most of her resources — her 
material of people and her material of land. Ask of the 
poor clerk or the wretched unemployed if he is proud to be 
a citizen of this glorious Empire upon which the sun never 
sets ! You will see a growing socialistic sneer on his face. 
It is the duty of all custodians of empire to consolidate this 
British civilization and to banish the poverty from which 
all evils come; for this splendid Empire can maintain all its 
citizens in plenty, did we but make common-sense use of its 
resources. Who are the custodians of empire? We are 
all custodians and stewards of empire who have wealth, or 
power, or voice, or pen, to influence the betterment of our 
life and civilization. And you, good socialists and dema- 
gogues, who love to set class against class, why are you 
fighting only about the possessions of the heritage inside 
these small islands ? Why do ye not turn your attention to 
some "Imperial Socialism," and reach out for Land and 
Opportunity in Britain Overseas? 

The present method of empire-colonization is not ade- 
quate. The haphazard system of the survival of the fittest, 
of the emigrants pitchforked by circumstance out into the 



238 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

oversea province of the Empire produces a splendid nucleus 
of people, but it is far from being sufficient. The great body 
of people who ought to be benefited by the use of the 
imperial property are not in a position to make the effort 
unaided; they lack means and initiative, notwithstanding 
that under proper auspices they would be good material. 
So it is that the flower of the people of the emigrating class 
go, and the dregs remain. But it will be disastrous in the 
long run for the mother country to have its residue cast 
back upon it; the colonies may benefit, it is true, but we of 
imperial spirit want the Empire as a whole to benefit. The 
use of our oversea property and the applying thereto of our 
workless and overworked people must be organized. When 
will Britannia awake? 

What is the attitude in which Canadians regard Britain 
and the Empire? It is one of remarkable loyalty and strong 
spirit of race-affinity as a whole. Yet there are other 
elements. In some cases the Canadians have professed to 
find themselves impatient of the methods and manners of 
immigrating Englishmen. They say that these go over and 
air their supposed superiority and endeavour to carry out 
their unchangeable British ways; and so marked did this 
attitude become that the sentiment of "No English need 
apply " came to being. To one who know$ Canada it is 
evident that there is something to be said on both sides in 
this matter. The Canadians are hard-working and intel- 
ligent, with the future of a great nation before them, and 
they resent the attitude of Britons of a certain class (especially 
the wastrels of the upper class of England), who always say, 
"This is the way we do it in the Old Country," which seems 
to imply some pretence of superiority. There is much 
ground for Canadian dissatisfaction in this respect. The 
other side of the picture is that British methods and ideas 
are not without value for Canada; and the English character, 
when refined and conservative, is an acquisition for 
Canadians. The Canadians will find, when life becomes a 
little less strenuous, that it will be to their advantage to 
assimilate whatever they can of British tradition, literature 
and social culture. Even the "remittance man" possibly 
has some economic value in this respect ! Do not be 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 239 

offended, kind reader of Canada, at such an outlandish sug- 
gestion ! If a "remittance man," son of a duke or lesser 
example of the British upper class conies among you do 
not kick him out. Why not regard him as an interesting 
specimen in (social) natural history; give him a home (a 
species of glass case) to live in and enough to eat (limiting 
his supply of alcoholic drink reasonably), laugh at him, but 
observe his characteristics as a specimen ! But seriously, 
great toleration of British idiosyncrasy should be displayed. 
Canadians are a strenuous, hard-working and independent 
people: the present is the Canadian's work time; his coat 
is off (the Canadian never rolls up his shirt-sleeves though, 
and they used to laugh at me when I did it), and he is making 
money. But he wants to be more than a nation of farm- 
helps and dairymaids; and British culture is his heritage, 
not to be spurned. 

There are thousands of refined families in England who 
would gladly emigrate to Canada to escape the terrible 
pressure of life at home : the high rents, the rising cost of 
living, the insufficiency of employment for people of their 
class. These people would be a veritable acquisition for 
Canada, with their customs and refinement, the heritage of 
Britain's thousand years of civilization. In another part of 
this chapter I have brought forward my new doctrine of 
"Your Share of Empire" for the British citizen, bringing it 
forward that ''every British citizen is entitled to some tangible 
share of empire, especially in a share of the unoccupied 
lands of the Empire;" and I have strenuously urged, in 
pamphlets and at public meetings, as previously set forth, 
that towns and parishes of Britain should acquire perpetual 
title to tracts of land in the colonies, to be held as a heritage 
for their respective inhabitants. If this new doctrine is slow 
of acceptance in Britain the Canadians themselves (as well 
as the Australians or South Africans) might set it going, by 
assigning areas of good land, naming them after the various 
counties of the old country : Devonshire, Middlesex, York- 
shire, etc., putting them into condition for habitation as far 
as possible, and then inviting or bringing over families from 
Britain to dwell therein. A stream of magazines, papers 
and general communication and influences, moreover, should 



240 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

be kept up with the corresponding region of the Old Country, 
and thus the Empire would be sentimentally and physically 
bound together. I commend the consideration of this im- 
perial, yet practicable, Utopia to Canadians. 

And what incalculable imperial good the Church of Eng- 
land might do in the Canadian (or Australian or African) 
dominions. Have not the Canadians awakened to the fact 
that England is full of poor clergymen who barely make a 
living ? Why should not the communities of Canada endow 
Canadian livings out of their plentiful resources of land, and 
invite our English parsons to occupy them : to bring over 
their own beautiful civilization and improve the tone of 
Canada? These men are the product of an old European 
civilization, tradition and culture which all the millionaires 
of American society could not produce; these young curates 
and grave older ministers, sowing the seed of God's word 
and civilization in sleepy English villages, are worth their 
weight in gold ! There is no class or community in the 
world — clerical or lay — of such a high type of civilization 
(because English and Christian) as that which the English 
vicarages and parsonages contain. Yet England seems to 
value them little, for out of the twenty thousand livings — 
more or less — in England, there are only about 1,400 which 
enjoy more than four hundred pounds a year, whilst many 
hundreds of them positively are worth only about eighty 
pounds per annum. Spiritual starvation ! Wake up, good 
Canadian friends : it ought to be easy to lure them over. 
They are the very genius of civilization of this Old World, 
and might be had almost for a judicious asking. You have 
energy, prosperity, land and plenty, but you lack civilizing 
and refining elements. It is not to be expected that you 
could have them yet. It would be well worth your while to 
arrange to invite over every British clergyman who would 
come, assuring him home, land, and an income among you. 
They will bring in a refinement which will be of incalculable 
value for you, and which you cannot produce yourselves. 
Look at the United States below your border : they suffer 
even more than you from that dead level of mediocrity which 
is inevitable in a new world which has chosen to cut off the 
traditions and civilizing streams of the old. For you the 



BRITISH COLUMBIA 241 

British flag which waves over Canada ensures you a con- 
tinuance of these streams, which will also bring gentlemen 
among you, not only sturdy labourers and money-getters. 

It is true that the agents of the Dominions are making 

strenuous efforts to obtain emigrants from Britain. The 

country is flooded with alluring notices setting forth the 

advantages of this or that region : with beautifully coloured 

pamphlets depicting azure skies and golden wheat-fields, 

homes which have sprung up in a year, giant potatoes and 

phenomenal bushels of oats to the acre ; apple-laden orchards, 

maps, plans and guides — all are spread for the reading of 

the sluggish British emigrant. But, good Governors, y£)u 

cannot reach those people who ought to be benefited by" 

these means. You must take them with a firm and kindly 

hand and lead them forth, as a modern Moses, from this 

wilderness of insufficiency of modern England, forth into 

those lands which you — not untruthfully — depict as flowing 

with milk and honey, the promised lands to which the finger 

of God has pointed long, but whose opportunities man, his 

eyes bent on his muck-rake of sheer commercialism, has so far 

failed to see. 

Instead of endeavouring to organize the poor immigrants 
and to prepare new centres for them the Canadian authorities 
are enacting regulations designed more and more to weed 
out the "undesirable " and fling them back in the face of the 
old country. So we read that immigration into Canada was 
cut down, due to the restrictive legislature from 260,000 
in 1907 to 146,000 in 1908. Now as an Imperialist I main- 
tain that every immigrant (with small exception of course) 
could be made a citizen of sufficient value to be allowed to 
remain under proper organization in the colonies, and that 
it is a barbarity to send people back who have once embarked 
for the New World. 

Britain has now the most unique opportunity for assur- 
ing her own existence and advancing her civilization that 
any nation has ever possessed in the history of the world. 
As a country, Britain has reached her zenith, as an Empire : 
do we but awake in time to its possibilities, we may enter 
upon a life full and predominant. Canada and Britain are 
vital to each other's existence and well-being. 



XII 

ALASKA AND THE YUKON : THE LANDS OF THE 
MIDNIGHT SUN 

On looking at the map of the Americas we observe how 
the coast-Hne of the two continents, after extending up from 
the south-east in long, regular sweeping curves and tangents, 
with few indentations or irregularities (except the Norway- 
formation of British Columbia), turns suddenly in Alaska 
in a wide-sweeping hook towards Asia. Indeed, it begins to 
run towards the south again ; throwing off a necklace of 
islands — the Aleutian Islands — from a long cape before turn- 
ing once more to the north. This promontory and archi- 
pelago are the summits of a submerged coast range. At a 
former period, in the geology of long ago, America was here 
joined to Asia, and it is only separated even now by Behring 
Strait, thirty-five miles wide : a little more than the distance 
between Britain and France. In fact, it presents, on the 
map, the aspect of reaching out towards that continent where 
the cradle of the human race first was, as if it strove to form 
a passage for the germ of humanity to its own territories. 
Probably it did form a junction and a path for man and other 
fauna once. 

We also observe that the great cordillera, which resolutely 
follows the American-Pacific coasts nearly across a hemi- 
sphere, curves round to the south-west in Alaska and has 
determined the form of the country. This giant curve of the 
cordillera in the north obeys a cause : it is the result of 
the flexure of the strata upon meeting the geological struc- 
ture of Asia. The vast "earth-wrinkles " born of the globe's 
contracting skin in the tertiary ages, which have held their 
course for ten thousand miles, from Patagonia to Alaska, 
have terminated in a giant "dimple" here towards the top 
of the world. At this dimple, or "hinge," of the rock- 

242 




'J s 



D o 
o 

s 



^-^ 



ALASKA AND THE YUKON 243 

directions of the New World and the Old is formed the 
Alaska range, culminating in the splendid granite uplift of 
Mount McKinley — worthily named after a great ruler — the 
highest mountain in North America. This great snowy 
dome, far from the coast in the heart of Alaska, is thrust 
upwards into the blue and frosty sky of the Arctic to an 
altitude above sea-level of 20,390 feet. The low country 
surrounding it accentuates its altitude : more than nineteen 
thousand feet of granite and glaciered slopes rising upward 
from the land of ice and swamp within the region of the 
midnight sun. 

Departing sharply from the north-westerly-trending coast 
of British Columbia, near that point where the great British- 
Yukon territory nearly — but not quite — comes down to the 
Great Pacific Coast; near that point where the 140th 
meridian W. and the 6oth degree of latitude cross, the 
Alaska coast goes westwardly eight hundred miles or more 
to where, near the 165th meridian, it turns north again to 
Behring Straits. Huge, neglected, little-known pieces of 
territory here; and at the north-west corner is Prince of 
Wales Cape, so named by Captain Cook, who doubled it in 
1778. Poor Captain Cook! To escape the winter of these 
frigid shores he went due south, a matter of a couple of 
thousand miles, to Hawaii, and was murdered by savages 
on the shores of that terrestrial paradise of palm trees and 
sunny sands, soft dusky damsels and cannibals. Could 
there be a greater contrast than these two places — Alaska 
and Hawaii ? When I was in San Francisco I had the choice 
of going either to Alaska on the Yukon, or Hawaii, with 
remunerative possibilities attached to both. But the El 
Dorados of Mexico and Peru lured me on, as I have related 
elsewhere. I have always retained in my memory a snatch 
of doggerel which was brought to San Francisco by a Welsh- 
man I knew who lived in Hawaii, in a palm-thatched house 
with a dusky wife and a troop of children — at least that is 
the way he described it when asking me to call if I went that 
way ! His song ran — 

"I know a little Maui girl; she lives at Waikapoo, 
With eyes so sweet and pearly teeth, and hair of a dusky hue, 
Way down by Billy Cornwall's sugar mill this damsel does reside, 
And I am never happy quite unless I'm by her side. 

R 2 



244 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

My love for you— wa-ha-ki-no, 

Your love for me — hd-pd-la-so, 

Don't tell mamma — noui-noui, 

She'll tell papa — koui-koui 

Noui-noui, — pilla-kia — with — me — now ! " 

or words to that effect, the dialect of which I will not alto- 
gether vouch for. But pardon, kind reader, that I should 
have intruded this beach-combing doggerel into these serious 
chronicles. 

From Alaska I have wandered rather far to the Sandwich 
Islands, but even they are part of the historico-geographical 
sphere of the Great Pacific Coast, 2,080 miles, as they are, 
to the west of San Francisco. So, indeed, are the Philippines, 
in a sense, right on the other side of the Pacific, as I have 
mentioned elsewhere. But to return to Alaska and the 
Yukon. 

The coast-line from Puget Sound in Washington and 
Vancouver to Glacier Bay in Alaska is a scenic part of this 
great coast such as Europe might envy. Innumerable 
islands, forest-covered and crowned by mountains whose 
variety of form arrest the view, culminating in snow-clad 
mountain peaks whose glaciers come down into the Pacific 
waves. It might be paying Switzerland a compliment, some 
travellers have averred, to call that country the Alaska of 
Europe ! The magnificent peak of St. Elias rears its ice- 
and-snow mantle from the very level of the tide up to an 
elevation of eighteen thousand feet, and so probably pre- 
sents the greatest expanse of perpetual snow-cap of any 
mountain in the world. Two other points of the St. Elias 
range, Fairweather and Crillion, are both higher than Mont 
Blanc, but, like their sister peak of the chain, their brows are 
often hidden under the clouds of Alaska. The fogs and 
rains which condense from the moisture of the Japan current 
are, however, less frequent at certain seasons (there is a 
regular "tourist" season to Alaska), and early in the year 
the "midnight sun" is a feature of attraction to the globe- 
trotter upon the Alaska steamer's deck. 

The enormous timber wealth of Alaska (mainly the Sitka 
spruce and hemlock), thanks to the heavy rainfalls, is less 
subject to forest fires than that of the Puget Sound region — 
fires, which so grievously devastate the forests of Oregon and 



ALASKA AND THE YUKON 245 

British Columbia, and whose smoke hides the beauties of 
the snow-clad Olympian range. The forests of the islands 
of Alaska, among which the steamer takes its way for days 
as along a mighty river, come down to the very shores, 
beachless, and terminating in a tide-stained, rocky wall. 
Neither bare hillside nor flat spaces are seen, for this archi- 
pelago of south-eastern Alaska bears out its character of sub- 
merged mountain tops, covered with forest growth. 

Further towards the north, still in the south-east Alaskan 
strip which shuts out the sea from that part of British 
Columbia and the Yukon territory of Canada, the appear- 
ance of the country becomes arctic, with snow-fields and 
frozen rivers which extend inland from the coast. Snow- 
clad mountains and glaciers succeed each other as viewed 
from the steamer's deck, and icebergs float upon the quiet 
straits and inlets. The impressive glaciers of Glacier Bay 
is pronounced one of the most remarkable sights in the 
world. The beautiful and striking scenery of the Alaska 
coast is far from being inaccessible to the ordinary tourist, 
who can enjoy them at his leisure from the decks of the com- 
fortable steamers which go there from Puget Sound ports. 
No doubt these regions will more and more attract the 
European traveller as they become known. 

The area of Alaska is about 578,000 square miles, whilst 
the general coast-line measures four thousand miles in length. 
On the south is the Pacific Ocean, on the west Behring 
Sea, Behring Straits and the eastern end of Asia; on the 
north the Arctic Ocean, the northernmost part of the country 
being within the Arctic Circle. The western boundary of 
Alaska is the meridian of west longitude, 141° as regards 
the great body of the territory, whilst the narrow strip of 
coast and islands extending southward to latitude 56° N. 
was adjudicated by the finding of the joint British-x'Vmerican 
boundary commission of 1903. East of these long frontiers 
is the Canadian Yukon and the northern part of British 
Columbia. 

Alaska also includes the adjacent islands, as well as most 
of the 150 islands of the singular chain of the Aleutians, 
which extend from the great peaked promontory of Alaska 
for a thousand miles — enclosing Behring Sea — towards the 



246 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Asiatic coast of Kamchatka. Bare, rocky, and the home of 
volcanoes, some of which are active, are these northern 
desolate islands, formed by the submerged continuation of 
the coast range of British Columbia which traverses the 
southern portion of Alaska. The coast of Alaska in the 
southern portion has been described earlier. From Cross 
Sound (to the north of Sitka) the coast range shows precipitous 
faces whose snow-line is at an elevation above sea-level of 
2,500 feet, giving origin to thousands of glaciers, whilst 
upon the two thousand miles of seaboard westward from that 
point into the Aleutian Islands there are ten active volcanoes 
and numerous mineral-charged, hot springs. Nature's forces, 
both heat and cold, are singularly active and blended above 
this "hinge" of the rock-formation of Asia and America. 
The glacier-forms and the rocks and inlets and islands are 
the edge of a vast interior wilderness. Ice-sculpture and 
ice-effects run riot ; and islands of few or no inhabitants of 
the human world are encountered at every turn upon vast 
stretches of coast ; and— 

"All unknown its columns rose 
Where deep and undisturbed repose 
The cormorant had found; 
There the shy seal had quiet home" — 

as runs the ode to Staffa, that distant British isle in the 
same latitude, and nearly at the opposite side of the world. 

The hair-seals are found along the whole coast-line; whilst 
the fur-seals are taken at their breeding-place of the Pribylof 
Islands. Other resources of the Alaskan coast are its 
fisheries, whilst on the eastern shores of Cook's inlet deposits 
of lignite (brown coal) occur, as well as on the Alaska pen- 
insula and elsewhere. Gold, of course, is the main pro- 
duct, and that which of recent years has made Alaska and 
the Yukon famous. The well-known Treadwell Mine near 
Juneau with a large quartz-crushing installation yields high 
profits, working upon great ore-bodies whose value is only 
ten to twelve shillings per ton of ore. 

The total population of Alaska is somewhat over sixty 
thousand souls, of which about half are whites and a quarter 
Eskimos, the rest being Indians. The Eskimos of the 
Aleutian Islands barely number two thousand. The climate 



ALASKA AND THE YUKON 247 

of Alaska presents some marked contrasts. At Juneau and 
Sitka — chief places on the south-east Alaska coast-strip and 
archipelago — the mean temperature is about 50° F., and the 
thermometer rarely falls below zero; whilst in the interior 
the summer temperature rises at times to 90°, and in winter 
go down frequently to a depth of 40° or 50° F. below zero. 
In the interior there is little rain, but on the coast the rain- 
fall ranges from eighty-three to a hundred inches. It is to 
be remembered that an enormous range of territory is em- 
bodied in Alaska, and that the south-eastern strip, although 
most known at present, is but a fraction of the whole. 

The shores of Behring Sea and the Arctic Ocean in Alaska 
are low, level lands of sixty to a hundred miles in width ; 
whilst in the interior lies the mountainous region of the 
Alaska range — a compound strata of sedimentary rocks from 
the paleozoic to the tertiary periods, as determined by a 
recent geological expedition from the United States. The 
culminating point is the high Mount McKinley, earlier 
described. The great Yukon River, which rises in the 
Canadian-Yukon territory, flows through the heart of Alaska, 
right across it, and empties into Behring Sea, south of the 
famous strait, flowing over more than thirty degrees of 
latitude. The Kowak is a tributary of the Yukon, and on 
this river the subsoil ice rises vertically above the water to 
150 feet — a common feature of Alaska. In the low, damp 
wilderness of central Alaska the timber is the white spruce ; 
and upon the limit of the timber-line there is grass pasture 
at the head of glacial streams where the caribou and the 
moose find food, whilst the wild mountain sheep and the 
grizzly bear also have their home in this undisturbed 
northern environment. 

Sealing has been an important industry. "Come with 
me," said the skipper of a seal-hunting steamer as we con- 
versed together in the office of a San Francisco hotel. "Put 
five hundred dollars into the venture and come up to the 
Alaska Islands : here you shall make your fortune in seal- 
skins. I have got a patent harpoon-gun calculated to knock 
spots off any seal in the Arctic ! " Whilst I did not fail to 
lend attentive ear to the enterprising seaman's sanguine offer, 
I did not accept it. The frozen north never held attraction 



248 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

for me, I told him, unless (which was a very remote chance) 
I might head an expedition to the Pole, or sail through the 
North West Passage ! The story of Franklin has always 
remained with me since the days of boyhood — 

"The cold north hath thy bones, and thou, 
Heroic sailor-soul ; 
Art passing on thine happier voyage, 
Towards no earthly pole ! " 

So the skipper and his crew sailed away : I saw him go from 
San Francisco's wharf. His ship — or another on a similar 
expedition, I did not learn which— never returned to the 
Golden Gate, for it was wrecked somewhere in the Aleutian 
Islands ! However, it was not that I feared having to eat 
Arctic lichens, as Franklin and his companions did, instead 
of the beefsteaks of San Francisco hotels. I have often 
enough suffered hunger in the deserts or forests of Western 
America, from California to Chile, and suffered other priva- 
tions which fall to the lot of the adventurous traveller on 
occasions. 

Instead, I took a sail around the Bay of San Francisco 
with an Italian fisherman, whose boat I sometimes hired — 
the picturesque, lateen-sail boats which look as if they had 
just drifted in from some Italian or Sardinian harbour, and 
the equally picturesque buccaneer-fishermen, their owners, 
Italians with high sea boots and crimson sash, which are a 
feature of the San Francisco sea front. And when I landed 
I took my stand upon a long, stretching wharf on piles, such 
as abound there, and looked towards the south. For it was 
the south which attracted me : Mexico and Peru were the 
far-off lands which my fancy haunted — the great plateau of 
Anahuac, the Andes and the Amazon. And my dream was 
later fulfilled, for I have heard the leaves of the platanos 
murmur by the banks of the distant Maraiion, and have 
trod snowy summits of the Andes of Peru where human 
foot never trod before — matters, perchance, of some satis- 
faction to that "rolling stone" which gathers not the early 
lichens of wealth. 

But on San Francisco's wharfs and in its hotels yet another 
allurement was dangled before me. "Vamos, mi amigo," a 
Spanish voice said, the voice of a Spanish friend I had made 



ALASKA AND THE YUKON 249 

there, who had but a few weeks before alighted on the wharf 
from a Hong-Kong ocean liner, having come from Manila. 
"Let us go to the Philippines; you, an English engineer, 
will make a fortune there." Many times he repeated this 
exhortation, always, with Spanish generosity and polite- 
ness, opening his cigar-case simultaneously and offering one 
of the delicious Manilas which he had brought with him — 
and many a time I questioned him — avid of adventure — about 
his far-off island under the Captans-Generals of Spain. For 
this w-as just before the famous Dewey and the fall of colonial 
Spain. And my friend unfolded tales — true I doubt not — of 
great possibilities in those summer isles of plenty. Then 
he detailed to me the object of his stay in San Francisco. 
There was to be an international exhibition in the city : 
one of those evanescent "white cities" with which the world 
is so familiar; and the Government of the Philippines had 
charged my friend with the office of commissioner for the 
Manila exhibit : and cigars, hemp, natives and other inter- 
esting matters (which I will shortly mention) were coming 
over. 

The Philippine Islands are a long way from San Francisco 
and the Great Pacific Coast — something like eight or nine 
thousand miles. But historico-geographically — if I may be 
permitted the term — they are much allied thereto. Magel- 
lan, whose vessels circumnavigated the world after dis- 
covering the straits which bear his name and the ocean which 
he called the Pacific, died there. Plate-ships and galleons, 
harassed of Drake and bearing untold wealth, went that way, 
spreading their wings upon the long ocean trajectory betw-een 
Lima or Panama, or Acapulco, and Manila, and for three 
hundred years these great islands lived under Spanish 
civilization, until the famous Dewey brought down the flag 
by defeating the antiquated Spanish fleet in Manila Bay. 
It was a revelation for the Americans to establish govern- 
ment in these islands. Their ideas, which until then had 
gone little beyond the parish pump's requirements, were 
forced to germinate and expand into "un-American" paths, 
and generals and school-marms were pitchforked out to rule 
and teach the dusky Filipinos, a work which they strove 
steadfastly and well to accomplish, but which has proved 



250 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

a problem undreamt of, and impossible under the ordinary 
methods of the United States. But I anticipate. My 
Spanish friend begged that he might engage me on the spot 
as engineer-in-chief of Ihe Manila exhibit. Without com- 
mitting myself I inquired what the Spanish Government 
would expect of me. From his reply I gathered that the 
duties would not be onerous, consisting principally of going 
to the place when I felt inclined and making free use of the 
best Manila cigars ! Imagining possibly by my non-com- 
mittal demeanour that the post lacked allurement, the Spaniard 
added some further particulars. "There are twenty Fili- 
pino girls coming over," he said, "native girls, to make 
cigars in the exhibition." He went on to say that the native 
girls were exceedingly pretty and amiable, and (although 
dusky, of course) very fond of Englishmen, and that many 
of my countrymen in Manila had large families with their 
native consorts. This interesting matter he concluded by 
saying, in the inimitable fashion of the colonial Spaniard, 
"I am sure they will love you. I answer for them all, I give 
them to you ; they are yours ! " . . . 

I must again express regret, kind reader, for having thus 
wandered from the subject of cold arctic Alaska to that of 
warm-blooded Filipino girls, and to make amends I will 
return at once to the strenuous life. If anything more 
strenuous than the Yukon gold-fields and the building of 
the White Pass Railway can be found upon the whole 
length of the Great Pacific Coast I have not heard of it. 

It was in 1896 that gold was discovered on the Yukon 
River, and miners flocked in rapidly to the diggings. So 
much gold dust was obtained by those first on the field that 
the miners, who had been obliged to hoard it in old meat- 
tins and anything else, in their tents or shanties during the 
winter, were extremely anxious about getting the yellow 
metal to the San Francisco or Seattle market, as they 
honestly thought that there would be a glut of gold and that 
it would be of no value ! I happened to be in San Francisco 
when the first shipment of gold came down, I think in 1898, 
and the rush for Klondyke — situated on the Canadian Klon- 
dyke River (in the Yukon territory), which is a tributary of 
the ereat Yukon River of Alaska — is now a matter of ancient 




> 
o 

s 

W 
H 

o 






ALASKA AND THE YUKON 251 

history. Boxes of gold-dust and nuggets came down by 
every steamer, and the excitement was intense — everybody 
wanted to go. 

But Klondyke was a terribly inaccessible place, in the 
heart of an uninhabited and inclement region, which no one 
had ever heard of until gold was found there. There were 
two ways of getting to it. First and easiest was that by sea 
from Seattle or San Francisco, round the coast of Alaska 
for three or four thousand miles to St. Michaels, at the 
mouth of the Yukon River below Behring Straits, and then 
up this great fluvial way for 1,500 miles, more or less. But 
this way is only open for a few months in the year, during 
the summer, whilst the voyage against the current, in the small 
and scarce river steamers, was slow, and accommodation 
precarious. Dawson City, it is to be recollected, is some nine 
hundred miles up the Yukon River, over the Alaska border 
in the Canadian Yukon territory, and is in the region of the 
midnight sun. Circle City, so called from being close to 
the Arctic Circle, in latitude 65° 40', is about 150 miles nearer 
the mouth, and not far beyond this the great waterway 
touches the Arctic Circle. 

The other route to the Klondyke was by sea for one thou- 
sand miles from Seattle or Vancouver to the head of the 
canal or fiord known as the Lynn Canal, and here the diffi- 
culties commenced. Skaguav, famous in the annals of 
Klondyke, is situated here, a town on a gravel flat backed 
by the snowy mountains of the coast range. From this 
place two passes gave access to the region beyond, w^hich 
led to the promised land of Klondvke — the White Pass and 
the Chilcoot Pass, leading to Lake Bennett, upon the Ll^pper 
Yukon ; and from this point navigation w'as performed down 
the rapids in small boats built on the spot. But the White 
Pass was a terrible place, and took heavy toll of men, 
merchandise and horses. Indeed, as the rush of adven- 
turers, pouring into Skaguay and pouring out over the pass 
increased, the trail became blocked; horses starved to death 
or broke their legs amid the rocks, and " Dead Horse Trail " 
— sinister sobriquet which it soon earned — showed upon 
one of its worst portions more than 3,500 dead horses upon 
a sinsrle mile of its fatal course ! 



252 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

And now the railway appears upon the scene. Skaguay 
had become a lawless place, partly due to the fact that it was 
a sort of "no man's land," for it was impossible to say 
whether it was in United States or Canadian territory, and 
the lawless element which collected worked their will under 
the leadership of a "bad man" rejoicing in the appellation 
of "Soapy Smith." However, some sort of authority was 
established when the engineers of the projected railway arrived 
in 1898; a Vigilance Committee was formed, and "Soapy 
Smith's" regime came to an end by the method of killing 
"Soapy Smith!" But ten thousand squatters had settled 
there and laid claim to Skaguay flat, and asked exorbitant 
prices for the railway's right-of-way. However, construction 
was soon commenced, although the rush to the mines being 
at its height it was difficult to keep any labourers on the line 
at all. On one occasion, gold having been discovered at 
Atlin, in British Columbia, close at hand, nearly 1,500 
workmen left in a body. Moreover, the route of the line was 
so steep and difficult that a foothold could only be obtained 
upon the mountain slopes by driving in steel bars and 
attaching chains thereto. Further complications arose due to 
the dispute between the United States and Canada as to the 
sovereignty of the coast strip between Skaguay and White 
Pass — a distance of twenty miles. This, however, was later 
adjudicated by arbitration to the United States ; whilst from 
the summit of the pass to the shore of Lake Bennett the 
route laj through land of the province of British Columbia, 
and thence onward through the Yukon territory, which is 
subject to the federal control of the Dominion of Canada. 
Thus the 115 miles of this railway runs through territory 
under three different jurisdictions. 

The whole line was completed, notwithstanding all these 
difficulties, within the remarkably short space of a year, and 
the first train ran through from Skaguay over the White Pass 
— 2,865 feet elevation above sea-level — and down to Lake 
Bennett in July 1899; thus establishing through means of 
communication between the Pacific Ocean and the navigable 
headwaters of the great Yukon River. From this point to 
St. Michael's at the mouth is 2,500 miles — distances are 
enormous, we shall observe, here — and as the White Horse 



ALASKA AND THE YUKON 253 

and other rapids below the lake only permitted navigation 
down stream, another seventy-five miles of line were built 
to their foot, whence clear passage is maintained to Behring 
Sea. Thus was this strenuous railway built/ but constant 
work is necessary to keep it open in winter from the heavy 
snow-drifts. 

A great railway project for Alaska is that of bringing a 
line to the shores of Behring Straits from the British 
Columbia system and thence connecting with Asia by means 
of a train ferry across the intervening thirty-five miles of 
the straits, and on the Russian side to connect with the 
Siberian Railway at Irkutsk. When that is accomplished, 
good reader, we may take ticket in Paris for New York by 
rail ! Stranger things may happen in our lifetime. 

The native races of Alaska belong to two principal stocks : 
the Indian and the Eskimo. The Eskimos are subdivided 
into Innuits and Aleuts; the former inhabiting the northern 
and western coasts, and the latter the Alaskan peninsula 
and Aleutian Islands; whilst the Indians of the interior 
are the Athabascans, and those of south-east Alaska (front- 
ing upon British Columbia) are known as the Thlinkets. 
These Indians at Sitka are under control of American mis- 
sionary schools, and they are of intelligent ways and appear- 
ance, showing an initiative and adaptability, it is stated, 
after the manner of Japanese, whom they resemble somewhat 
in physiognomy. I have often noted the same similarity, 
especially in face and eyes, in the Indian of Peru and Mexico 
at times, and there can be little doubt of some Mongolian 
migration from Asia to Africa in prehistoric time, from the 
Old World to the New via Behring Straits. Even among the 
upper-class Mexicans, especially in the women, the Japanese 
air is noticeable in some cases, where even the strong Spanish 
strain has not banished it. 

Alaska is isolated territorially from the rest of the United 
States. It must be looked upon as a country of extensive 
and almost unknown resources, which are but held in reserve 
pending the pushing forward of the advancing army of 
civilization (or commercial development at least) from the 

' For a detailed account of this remarkable work see Engineering 
Wonders of the World : Nelson. 



254 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

South. At present mainly an arctic wilderness, the condi- 
tions of climate are such as will by no means prevent the 
growth of a busy population when natural development 
requires such. 

As to the Yukon, how many British readers know where 
the Yukon territory is, or whom it belongs to ? If Alaska 
contains possibilities, much more so does the Yukon. This 
vast region, part of that enormous north-west territory be- 
longing to Canada and the British Empire, which stretches 
eastwardly for a couple of thousand miles to Hudson Bay 
(itself a great sea in the middle of which Great Britain could 
be put down and permit us to sail round it out of sight of 
land), and northwardly — well, to the North Pole ! It is a 
land of enormous river and lake systems — chief among them 
the Great Bear Lake, Great Slave Lake, Mackenzie, Copper- 
mine and other rivers, which hydrographically, have their 
outlet to the Arctic Ocean. Think of it, good British reader ! 
think of a land — the north-west territories— of two and a 
quarter million square miles in area, with a total population 
spread over it of about the size of that of a small town in 
England, for there are not more than one hundred thousand 
people in this great pre-continent. Some day, in the orderly 
march of the world, this great British heritage must become 
the home of a busy people of high civilization, for its 
resources are boundless and its climate a rigorous one such 
as the strenuous white man of Anglo-Saxon race adapts 
himself to. Truly the heart of man may take comfort in 
the enormous unoccupied areas of the world, waiting his 
requirements. Not yet need we limit our populations did 
we but learn to use nature's real gifts adequately ! 

Spiritual domination on the northern part of the Great 
Pacific Coast and areas tributary thereto may be said to be 
divided. The Russian influence in Alaska remains in 
nomenclature and religion alone. The natives of the 
Aleutian Islands have been converted to the Greek Church ; 
and in Sitka (a matter, be it recollected, of some 1,500 miles 
away) the old Greek Church building, with its pictures of 
saints, is a point of interest for tourists who come up from 
Seattle or Vancouver by steamer, as is also the old Russian 
castle. In the northern portion of the American continents, 



ALASKA AND THE YUKON 255 

therefore, it is interesting to note, the saints of the Greek 
Church hold sway; as in the south do the saints of the, 
Roman CathoHc. But the British, or rather the Canadian, 
Church also holds spiritual sway in these lands of the mid- 
night sun ; and the Archdeacon of Moosenee, the northern- 
most point of civilization, in the north-west territories, gave 
me the interesting information that his diocese claims spiritual 
jurisdiction over the North Pole ! I should add that the 
worthy and reverend archdeacon is an Irishman. 

Note. — These lines were in press a few days before the reported discovery 
of the North Pole by Cook and Peary. 



XIII 

COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR : THE LANDS OF THE EQUATOR 

From the Arctic Circle to the equator the exigencies of our 
survey, good reader, now demand a sudden flight. We have 
visited the whole of that far-stretching part of the Great 
Pacific Coast lying northwards from our starting-point of 
Panama — a vast septentrional littoral with eight thousand 
miles of wave-beat, sunset shore. Our way now lies in 
southern seas. We must cross the Line, and ascend the 
majestic cordillera of the Andes, which forms the most 
striking feature of this meridional world below Panama. 

Upon some of the attributes of the Republic of Colombia 
I have already lightly touched in describing the little 
Republic of Panama, formerly a province of this big land of 
Bolivar. Colombia is the first country in South America 
which we reach in going southwards down the Pacific Ocean. 
As we leave the harbour of Panama, the steamer passes 
amid the emerald isles which stud its bay, rising vegetation- 
covered from the blue Pacific in tropical beauty. The land 
recedes, the famous canal site and the low hills which top 
it fade gently away, reminding us as we look upon the 
vanishing horizon how small a thing in time and space even 
man's mightiest efforts are. Yet, as people of the progres- 
sive world, we shall "rejoice, as a strong man to run a race " 
— to think of the triumph over nature which the completing 
of the canal will be, and look forward to the few years hence 
when {Dens volens) the steamer which bore us from Europe 
or from the United States shall have climbed that lock- 
stairway of the isthmus to take its way through the Pacific 
waters. Mind, indeed, shall have triumphed over matter. 

Now as to Colombia, I will not insult your intelligence, 
good reader, by reminding you that Colombia has nothing 
to do with British Columbia. It is a Spanish-American 

256 



COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR 257 

republic removed about five thousand miles from that sea 
front of the British Empire, along this Great Pacific Coast. 
This information, however, may be useful for those eager 
shareholders in railway or mining companies whose opera- 
tions are in Colombia, in order that they may not — with 
that apathetic lack of geographical knowledge common to 
their species — imagine that their investments are under the 
British flag ! 

The neighbours of Colombia are : on the north-west that 
recalcitrant daughter of its loins the little Republic of 
Panama, on the north the Atlantic waters of the Caribbean 
Sea, on the east Venezuela, on the south Peru and Ecuador, 
and on the west the Pacific Ocean. Colombia occupies, 
then, the north-west corner of the South American continent, 
and it has the unique situation among all the South 
American states of facing towards and having seaports upon 
both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. In addition to this, 
part of her territory lies upon the watersheds of both the 
Amazon and the Orinoco, those giant streams of the South 
American world. In Colombian or Venezuelan territory we 
have that singular anomaly of navigable communication 
between the tributaries of the Orinoco and the Amazon. 
Colombia, moreover, claims a frontage upon the main stream 
of the Amazon in territory disputed by Peru. The coast- 
line upon the Caribbean Sea is i,ioo miles long, and upon 
the Pacific 400 miles ; and the area of the country is calcu- 
lated at about 475,000 square miles. 

Considering now the topographical configuration, we find 
the characteristic Andine structure of paralleling cordilleras 
enclosing plateaux and profound river-basins : except that 
the lines of this parallelism bulge towards the north-east 
in this part of South America, rather than to the characteristic 
north-north-west. Indeed, in the equator-region the Cordil- 
lera of this great coast has taken a vast ogee-curve, as if 
some "end pressure" in the world's contraction during its 
formation had caused a natural wavering from the marked 
general trend, as required by exigencies of spatial considera- 
tion. Three Andine folds thus traverse Colombia, known 
respectively as the western, the central, and the eastern 
cordilleras, the first-named skirting the Pacific Ocean and 
s 



258 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

entering the Isthmus of Panama. The great river valleys 
have also the Andine characteristic of outlet to the Atlantic 
and inaccessibility to the Pacific, as exemplified so strongly in 
Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia, lying to the south. The great 
Magdalena River, which debouches at Barranquilla on the 
Caribbean Sea, descends, by its great tributary, the Cauca 
River, through the valley of that name; the beautiful fertile 
region, in its lower reaches, of which the republic is justifi- 
ably proud. At the head of this valley, more than six 
hundred miles from the mouth of the river, is the town of 
Popayan, founded in 1538, at an elevation of nearly six 
thousand feet above sea-level; at the foot of the Purace 
volcano, whose crest towers upwards ten thousand feet higher, 
a hundred miles further south we encounter the mountain- 
knot of Pasto, one of the Andine counterforts. Whilst the 
Cauca River is navigable in detached portions, and for some 
two hundred miles from its mouth, it does not form a fiuvial 
way or outlet for the valley in a navigable sense, and this 
fertile region must seek its outlet, as regards its rich upper 
p>ortion, over the Pacific-facing cordillera by railway from 
the important town of Cali to Buenaventura on the coast. 
Here the Andes present a lower gap, whilst the distance to 
the coast, in an air-line, is only some fifty miles. With this 
line the primitive little port of Buenaventura on the Pacific 
will take on an added importance; for Colombia is much 
shut off by lack of natural harbours from the Pacific. 

Otherwise the great Magdalena River descends between 
the central and the eastern cordilleras, rising like the Cauca 
at an elevation of fourteen thousand feet above sea-level, but 
with a very different regimen, forming, as it does, the main 
artery of communication through the country, being navig- 
able for some five hundred miles by river-boats of stern- 
wheel type, and penetrating the regions of the forests. 
Honda, one of the principal cities, and the famous capital 
of Bogota lie within this zone, but to reach the latter long 
stretches of mule-trail intervene between the river and the 
railway , 

Bogota is one of those various centres of Spanish-American 
civilization which loves to term itself the Paris of South 
America ; but into these pretensions it would be beyond the 



COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR 259 

scope of this work to inquire. It is one of those quaint, 
Hispanic capitals such as the Iberian peoples have stamped 
upon the New World, with much of pleasing and distinctive 
character — plaza, cathedral and that mediaeval social system 
inevitable upon class-distinction and priestly regime and the 
presence of a majority of Indian population. Nevertheless, 
Santa Fe de Bogota, as it was formerly called, has earned 
a certain reputation as a literary and cultured centre. The 
city was so named — Santa Fe — by Quesada, the conquistador 
who founded it, in connection with the war against 
Mahomedan power in Spain by Isabella the Catholic and 
Ferdinand ; and New Granada he termed the county from its 
similarity to its archetype. Bogota is situated on a broad 
sabana, or plain, nearly nine thousand feet above sea-level, 
with a splendid temperate climate, atmosphere of marvellous 
clearness, and surroundings which are of much scenic value. 
The ridge rising above it close at hand forms the divortia 
aquaum of the watershed of the Magdalena and the tribu- 
taries of the Orinoco, which latter flow away eastwardly into 
Venezuela. 

The population of Colombia is estimated at about four 
millions approximately, half of which are of white race. 
There are numbers of negroes and Zambos; the latter the 
people formed from the crossing of negroes and Indians. 
As to the people of the upper class they present the same 
characteristics which we have encountered in Mexico two 
thousand miles to the north, and which we shall observe in 
Lima, one thousand miles to the south. The Colombian, 
however, has retained a stronger conceit of the value of his 
civilization, and a sense of proportion is less common with 
him than with the Mexican or the Peruvian. The women 
of this class present the same charm of romantic disposition, 
beauty and attractiveness in their special sphere, which the 
traveller has learned to associate with the people of these 
regions of Hispanic-America. Of late years the regime 
of the Colombian president,^ who has made a name for him- 
self in Spanish-American affairs, has been one of greater 
order for the country — a condition which it was time should 
occur. 

^ Reyes. 

S 2 



260 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Colombia is exceedingly rich in minerals. It shares with 
Mexico, Peru, Bolivia and Chile that extraordinary pro- 
fusion of wealth in metalliferous and other minerals which 
is so strong a feature of the natural resources of these coun- 
tries, whose existence is due to the Andes. Gold, silver, 
copper, coal, salt, sulphur, mercury, asphalt and others are 
found and worked. As to gold there are scores of little mills 
running upon great lodes worthy of elaborate modern 
machinery and large outputs — lodes which traverse the 
country for miles. Dredging possibilities are considered 
to be of great promise, and it is estimated that the placer 
gold-bearing regions and those susceptible to dredging, are 
twice the size of those of California and New Zealand — 
famous centres of gold-dredging — put together. But roads, 
railways and sea-ports are all required before this great 
territory can be exploited. Vast portions of it have never 
been prospected, all tributary to the great lode-crossed, 
mineral-bearing ranges of the Colombian Andes, whose 
mountain streams in places may almost be said to be choked 
with gold. Some successful quartz-crushing mills are at work 
under British and American capital, and much more is 
projected. 

The conditions of its topography and consequent climatic 
zones endow Colombia with those numerous species of the 
vegetable world which we are accustomed to associate with 
these Andine-formed regions. The three zones — hot, 
temperate and cold — in accordance with their respective 
elevations above sea-level, are the home of a rich, varied 
flora and fauna, containing most of the South American 
types. Up to the limit of the hot zone — two thousand feet 
— we have the tropical palm, sugar-cane, coffee, bread-fruit, 
mahogany, tobacco, india-rubber, agave, and other fibrous 
and medicinal plants. Upwards thence, the temperate zone, 
above eight thousand feet the soil produces crops more 
familiar to the European, such as wheat and other cereals, 
and potatoes; whilst above that belt lies the cold zone — 
so called rather by contrast, with an agreeable and tonic 
climate. Above ten thousand feet the cold paramos — dry, 
cold, inhospitable and inclement steppes — are traversed, 
crowned by the summits of the Cordilleras; the perpetual 




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COLOMBIA AND ECUADOK 261 

snow-cap extending from 15,500 feet to 18,000 feet above sea- 
level. 

Colombia, as we have seen, is a country at present whose 
outlet is to the Atlantic rather than the Pacific Ocean. 
Barranquilla is one of its main ports of call, also Cartagena, 
both near the debouchure of the great Magdalena River. 
The mouth of this great river is broad and presents an 
attractive aspect, especially in comparison with the seaport 
of La Guayra, its Venezuelan neighbour, perched at the foot 
of a cliff. It was with intense interest that I entered those 
picturesque places and traversed the remarkable stone walls 
and fortresses upon the shore of Cartagena — walls which were 
built to defend, in centuries past, the city from the attacks of 
bold British and Dutch buccaneers of the Spanish Main. 

But our business lies not on the Caribbean Sea, good 
reader, but adown the Great Pacific littoral and the tropic 
coast of Ecuador. 

The northern part of the Ecuadorian coast is of cliff- 
formation, consisting of forest-covered mountains rising to 
one thousand feet or more ; whilst the southerly part has some 
coastal plains. Tectonic activity plays and has played a 
leading part upon this northern coast, for here runs the 
colossal fracture-zone, the earthquake-producing belt whose 
awful settlements wrecked San Francisco and Valparaiso and 
did great damage in Ecuador. The towering heights of the 
Andes and the Cordilleras which pierce the upper element, 
and the abysmal depths of the ocean into which the seaboard 
and the American continent plunges along the Great Pacific 
Coast line are responsible for these tectonic catastrophes — 
earth movements which nature so terribly translates in terms 
of the death of man. 

Upon the Ecuadorian coast dark mist-clouds — a veil which 
the Equator flings ever at mid-day upon the verge of this 
sunset-facing land — hover upon the wooded mountains, and 
flights of pelicans (the Alcatraz of Spanish-America, whose 
beautiful, surf-polished bones, long, strong and of wondrous 
aerial structure, such as are worthy of study by aeroplane- 
building man of this new time, I have gathered on the 
beaches of Peru) sweep through the air, always in evidence. 

Here the great Guayas River empties, the chief, and 



262 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

indeed the only important navigable fluvial way, not only of 
Ecuador, but of the whole of this vast coast, giving access 
to the interior. Floating islands of trunks and plants swirl 
seawardly upon its turgid bosom; the floating home of 
alligators, sunning themselves contentedly upon their sea- 
ward voyage. The river is nearly two miles wide near its 
mouth, with mangrove-lined shores and islands whose 
verdant colour arrests the traveller's attention in comparison 
with the barren sandhills of Peru which follow. 

The primeval forests of the western slope of the western 
Ecuadorian cordillera, with their colossal tree-trunks, huge 
leaves and enormous height, rise to an elevation of about 
four thousand feet, and thence the shrub belt appears, which, 
in its turn, gives place to volcanic districts whose mountain 
crests show their characteristic andesite lava formation. 
Next comes the lofty region of the Paramos, with their 
scanty vegetation, far above the level of the sea. 

But let us first enter the great Guayas River. My first 
introduction thereto bore witness to a catastrophe, in which 
happily no lives were lost. Our comfortable steamer — one 
of the Chilean Line — was slowly ascending the turgid current, 
in order to call at the famous seaport of Guayaquil. Half 
way up a shrill whistle greeted us, and an old tub of a river 
steamer came out from the bank with the Clayton disinfect- 
ing apparatus on board. This apparatus, I must explain, 
consists of machinery for pumping sulphuretted gas into the 
holds of the steamers which ply in and out of all these ports, 
as a preventive against plague, yellow fever and other 
kindred pestilences, which are encountered on the coast from 
time to time. 

We slowed up; the Claytoti approached, and was made 
fast to our steamer, which, putting on steam, again advanced 
rapidly up-stream. As I was leaning over the rail, looking 
down on the tug's deck, I observed that a wave of water 
was heaping up against its prow, due to the speed, and this 
shortly began to climb the bulwarks and pour gently down 
upon its deck. This looked dangerous, and I called the 
attention of the man in the wheel-house to it. But whether 
he attached any importance to it or not, or what happened 
I could not quite tell, and the wave began to pour freely 



COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR 263 

into the Clayton's prow. A man rushed up now, with an 
axe, to cut the cable which united us, and others of the 
passengers on our steamer, who had seen the state of affairs, 
shouted to the officers to stop the vessel. Too late. The 
officer in charge did not grasp the situation quickly enough, 
and the waves poured freely into the doomed Clayton, and 
she commenced to careen to port. Shrieks and commotion 
arose from her crew of five; the man at the wheel abandoned 
his now useless post; the cable broke; the Clayton rolled 
slowly over, and a loud hissing of escaping steam and 
quenching fires arose as it slowly submerged. Fearing an 
explosion of the boilers, which would undoubtedly have 
wrecked our steamer, the passengers rushed to the other side 
of the deck, but no explosion took place. The wreck of 
the Clayton drifted astern with the current; the deck-house 
and upper workings broke away from the heavy hull and 
machinery, and I obtained a glimpse of the crew clambering 
for their lives on to the floating wreckage as the hull went 
down. 

The alarm had now been given and our anchor was 
dropped. The steamer swung round on her cable with the 
current, and came to rest on a mud-bank — soft fortunately — 
and preserved an even keel. Shouts arose for the boats to 
rescue the crew of the Clayton, who, perched on the wreck- 
age, were fast drifting down the river. I had already flung 
a life-buoy over in case any of them might be struggling in 
the water, and now I stood by to bear a hand, if it were 
necessary, with the boat. Bunglingly 'did they lower it, 
with two men therein, and it immediately swamped, throw- 
ing them into the water. Clinging on for their lives they 
were hauled up by the davit ropes, whilst another boat was 
lowered and successfully got away. Fortunately all the crew 
of the Clayton were saved ; at roll-call none were missing, 
and the net result of the catastrophe was the loss of their 
disinfecting steamer by the Ecuadorian Government. The 
matter which most attracted my attention was the unreadi- 
ness in lowering the boats, and it is hard to say what would 
have been the fate of the passengers of our steamer if disaster 
had overtaken it. As it was, we only lost six hours, reposing 
on the mud-bank until the next high tide. 



264 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

The city of Guayaquil looks well as we approach it upon 
the bosom of its broad river. On the eastern horizon the sun 
is setting behind a range of rounded, forest-covered hills — 
gorgeous saffron and crimson against a dark olive green 
mass, as I saw it ; and down at their bases cluster the houses, 
churches, wharfs and all the other elements of a busy sea- 
port; whilst in the foreground the funnels and rigging of 
steamers and sailing ships complete the picture. At times, 
far away, the giant Chimborazo showed his snow-mantle 
among the clouds as I watched from the steamer's deck. 
Possibly the yellow flag of quarantine is in evidence in the 
harbour, as it often is here — plague or yellow fever. But 
conditions have vastly improved since the American regime 
at Panama; and the Spanish-Americans are learning that 
there is no excuse for such scourges. Quito, of course, is 
far away in the interior, reached now by railway — the famous 
Quito-Guayaquil line, known best to London shareholders, 
perhaps, by the eternal question of, "Will the Government 
meet the payment on the bonds this time?" So far (1909) I 
believe the Government has met them, which is satisfactory. 
Quaint-looking canoes float upon the Guayaquil River in 
part of the town, and singular balsas or rafts made from tree- 
trunks (an invention of the early Peruvians) descend the 
river, laden with merchandise, with the tide, and return on 
the flood whence they came. These balsas even journey 
along the coast to Tumbez and Payta in Peru, and it was 
one of these which Pizarro captured just before the Conquest. 
The city, with its long lines of streets and white buildings 
rising in terraces up the hillside, and characteristic water- 
life, presents a certain Venetian aspect; whilst at night the 
numerous lights, seen from the river, give it a startlingly im- 
portant appearance, as of some great metropolis — which, 
however, it can scarcely be said to be, for its inhabitants do 
not number more than thirty or forty thousand. Neverthe- 
less, it is a place of handsome and pleasing appearance. 

It is interesting to recollect that we are here upon the 
westernmost part of the South American continent; yet, 
nevertheless, we are near the meridian of the eastern side of 
the United States, for Guayaquil is near the longitude of 
WasTiington, the capital of the United States. Here we 



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COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR 265 

are but two degrees south of the Line, whilst Quito is scarcely 
more than ten miles south of it. Guayaquil is the main 
trade and shipping centre for the republic, and the principal 
article of export is chocolate. Some nations owe their wealth 
to gold, timber, wheat or fisheries, but Ecuador owes it to 
chocolate, the bean of which is w-ell termed pepa de oro, or 
"nugget of gold." Chocolate is the greatest source of the' 
country's wealth : some thirty thousand tons annually are 
produced, all but a fraction being for export, possibly one- 
third of the world's supply. The cacao, or chocolate, planta- 
tions are .situated on the alluvial soil of the hillsides and 
valleys of the Pacific slope, but the bean is, to a smaller 
extent, cultivated beyond the Andes. Other products of the 
coast zone are rubber, cocoanuts, bananas, and the singular 
cana de Guayaquil, which we find as a building material 
in Peru and Chile, whither it has been exported. These 
giant bamboos grow along the Guayas River, and attain a 
height of fifty feet or more, with a diameter at the base of 
six or eight inches. The cane has a singular power of 
storing up, in the divisions between its joints, quantities of 
fresh water, which it draws up from the swamps. Oranges, 
tobacco and numerous fruits are produced and exported to 
the neighbouring republics. The coast of Ecuador produces 
negroes, who flourish there almost alone among these 
republics. 

All these products, let us carefully note, will disappear as 
we go southwards to Peru. The forest regions coming 
down to the water's edge in Ecuador will give place to 
sandy deserts in Peru ; the India-rubber and the chocolate 
and the bamboo will have disappeared, and the negro will 
be scarce. Why ? — we shall understand it by looking at 
the map of the Equatorial current, and observing how that 
cool stream, which has rendered dry and arid the Peruvian 
littoral, has struck this western bulge of South America 
before reaching Ecuador, and has been deflected to the west 
across the Pacific Ocean. The coast of Ecuador retains its 
native moisture and warmth in consequence. The great 
Humbolt or Equatorial current has given salubrity to the 
Peruvian littoral at the expense of fertility. 

Off the Ecuadorian coast are the remarkable Galapagos 



266 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Islands, so named on account of the gigantic indigenous 
tortoises, or galapagos, found there. Much interest attaches, 
moreover, to these islands, from the fact that their natural 
history has never been interfered with by aboriginal man 
or animals introduced by him, so isolated are they, and this 
fact is of value to the consideration of matter relating to the 
genesis of species. 

The interior of Ecuador consists of, first, the stupendous 
mountain region of the Andes, and second, of the Amazon 
forests upon their eastern slopes and base. The colossal 
series of snow-crowned volcanoes of Ecuador is the culminat- 
ing orographical features of this mighty Cordillera (whether 
of North or South America), and Nature has lavished her 
most imposing mountain edifices, born of eternal fires and 
sculptured by eternal snows, upon this roof of the world 
where crosses the equator. The most remarkable contrasts 
of topography and climate are presented to the traveller here. 
Towering summits lie by the profoundest gorges, eternal 
snows lie gleaming above luxuriant forests, perpetual spring 
lies close to perpetual winter, and appalling deserts and 
wind-swept steppes alternate with smiling, fertile valleys. 
Nature has used her every resource and effect here, and the 
picture is complete in this land where the zenith sun shines 
down upon it. 

Of the glory of the Ecuadorian snow-clad peaks famous 
travellers have sung the praises. Personally I have only 
seen them from afar, for my own journeys over the Andine 
snow-caps were made farther south, in Peru, where the 
Andes are, however, scarcely less stupendous in places, and 
probably less known. Among these mountain giants of 
Ecuador is the famous Chimborazo, the loftiest peak, whose 
summit reaches 20,825 feet above sea-level, and whose 
ascent, attempted by Humbolt a century since, was accom- 
plished by Whymper thirty years ago. From the valley of 
Riobamba this glorious sentinel of the Andine world is 
seen in its most exposed beauty: its "monogene" structure 
and its glacier-sculptured form, together with its unusually 
sharply defined snow-line. Chimborazo stands upon the 
western chain, the Cretaceous Cordillera, and upon its 
western summit are the singular nieves penitentes, the 



COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR 267 

curious snow forms wrought of a vertical sun, nearly twenty 
thousand feet above sea-level. Of smoking Cotopaxi, Anti- 
sana, Tunguragua and a host of other giants of the 
Ecuadorian world we cannot halt to sing the praises here. 
The valley of Quito alone is encircled by twenty splendid 
volcanoes, from perfect cone to jagged crest, ranging through 
those forms familiar to the Cordilleran traveller in the snowy 
regions of the Great Pacific Coast. They are easily access- 
ible to the view of the traveller now that the railway from 
Guayaquil to Quito is operating ; and this great line zig- 
zags up to the Ambato plateau beneath the shadow of 
Chimborazo, the line rising to an elevation of 10,800 feet. 

The river and forest zone to the east of the Andes is in 
keeping with the general stupendous structure of the country; 
and the great navigable affluents of the Amazon, which rise 
in and traverse Ecuador, falling into the Maranon and 
Amazon in Peruvian territory, will be of much value in the 
future development of this wild, rich region. Ecuador has 
ninety rivers, one-third of which are navigable in part. 

The area of Ecuador is 116,000 square miles, and of its 
population of one and a half million souls about one-third 
are of mixed race — Spanish and Indian — with a small per- 
centage of pure whites. In the Amazonian forests tribes of 
savage Indians dwell or roam, numbering about a quarter 
of a million. The educated class of the people of Ecuador 
are of virile and progressive character; but the country is 
kept back by political unrest. Quito has a population of 
some seventy thousand people, and stands 9,600 feet above 
sea-level, surrounded by its mighty Andine sentinels. The 
general appearance of the city is picturesque in the extreme, 
with its white walls, red-tiled roofs, and crowds of Indians 
in bright-hued porchos, native dress, and broad-brimmed, 
white felt hats; whilst llamas, mules, oxen and other beasts 
of burden pass ceaselessly through the streets. It is to be 
recollected that Quito was the northern centre of the great 
Inca Empire, connected with Cuzco — the navel of that 
empire (Cuzco means "the navel"), twelve hundred miles 
away to the south by the famous Inca Road. Thus in 
juxtaposition with each other to-day are the descendants 
of the people of that bygone empire, scarcely changed in 



268 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the four centuries since it fell, rubbing shoulders with men 
and women in European dress, and gazing into shop- 
windows replete with merchandise from London, New York, 
Paris or Berlin ! Thus do civilization and barbarism run 
hand in hand in Spanish-America, as we shall also observe 
in Peru, and as we have seen in Mexico. 

There had been a revolution in Ecuador when my steamer 
dropped anchor in the river before Guayaquil, and a new 
president was in power. "Down with President Red, up 
with President White! Viva senores: una copita, caram- 
ba ! " Whilst I gazed upon the sea-front of Guayaquil came 
forth from the quay a double-decked river steamer, hung 
all over with bunting, and re-echoing with the strains of a 
band^a gay spectacle, but with a fearful list to port due to 
the crowd on deck, and I thought she would roll over. 
What was it ? It was the newly appointed minister to the 
Court of St. James (as the minister himself informed me 
afterwards, for we became friends), who had spent much of 
his resources in the revolution and was to take his reward 
in this way. He had a very large family and a considerable 
number of young men with him, who were going to Europe 
to be educated, or to take up consular posts, and we became 
companions on the voyage. I retain stray recollections of 
those singular but warm-hearted people. They went on 
shore at every port to take drinks at the bars, and it was 
remarkable the number of copitas they consumed. When 
we got to Panama they asked my opinion as to first visiting 
New York, which city — they had heard — far surpassed 
London in wealth and magnificence ! I endeavoured to 
advise them with strict attention to impartiality in inter- 
national affairs, and suggested that their best course would 
be to visit London first. At their request at Panama — they 
spoke no word of English — I piloted them across the isthmus, 
promising to conduct them on board "a magnificent floating 
palace," the royal mail steamer from Colon to Southampton. 
So I purchased from the purse they handed me tickets for 
the w'hole company of them — men, women and children, 
obtaining a reduction for so large a quantity, from the steam- 
ship office. "We suppose this is an opera troupe and that 
you are the impressario ! " said the steamship agent to me, 







0( 



COLOMBIA AND ECUADOR 269 

as he handed me ten per cent, rebate on the fares — an idea 
which, I confess, had not occurred to me before. These 
people kept with me to Southampton — they played violins 
and pianos beautifully, and gave a concert on board the 
steamer, and made speeches in Spanish which I had to 
translate, and when the white cliffs of Albion came in sight 
they opened bottles of champagne in my honour. But one 
of them — it was the first time he had travelled on a train, I 
think — pulled the communication cord of the boat-train to 
amuse himself, and the train came to a sudden stop at Bas- 
ingstoke. Again I acted as interpreter, saving them a fine 
from the indignant inspectors and train officials who rushed 
up to see what was the matter. 

But, kind reader, I have brought you home too soon. 
Not yet for us are the green fields of gentle, soothing Eng- 
land. Away to the south from Guayaquil we must go, along 
the heaving waves of that Great Pacific Coast whose surge- 
beat shores it is ours to follow. 



XIV 

PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS ^ 

A DEEP blue sky with the flashing sunset on the one hand 
flaunting great banners of gold and crimson in the west — 
the colours of Spain which once held sway here — and on the 
other the far, faint, grey serrated edge of the Andes : so far 
that no form or shape except that of outline is visible — the 
true test of distance — and from the surf-beat fringe of seal- 
haunted and bird-covered rocky promontories, whence a faint 
solemn moan of breaking rollers comes seaward, a broad, 
undulating, rising, coastal zone, tinted in the colours of purples 
and burnt-sierras which depict its canyons and its deserts, 
stretches away landwardly for a hundred miles towards that 
solemn Cordillera. The green sea rises refreshingly to meet 
the steamer's prow ; not a sail or smoke-line is visible ; not a 
hamlet or plantation denotes the presence of man upon the 
seaboard, and only the quivering and throbbing of the 
engines disturb the solitude of the deck, which I am pacing 
alone, regardless for the moment of the odour of dinner 
wafted from the windows of the steamer's saloon. For who 
would go to a stuffy cabin whilst yet that glowing disc 
remains upon the great horizon of the west ? Is the sun-god 
of the Aztecs and the Incas of so little moment? So Balboa 
gazed upon it; so Drake, as hitherwards he passed, hot on 
the plate-ships' track, and so throughout our thousand 
leagues of Peruvian and Chilean coast journey do we see it : 
"So sinks the day-star in the ocean bed." It becomes 
but a semi-diameter as I watch now ; it is but a segment of 
a circle, and again it has gone entirely, leaving a momentary 
gap upon the darkening sea-line ; and turning from the 
sunset sky I look again to the Cordillera-bounded east : wild, 

* Some of the particulars in this chapter are taken from a paper read by 
the author before the Royal Society of Arts in April, 1909, for which the 
society awarded him their silver medal. 

270 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 271 

rugged, mysterious. It is Peru : it is the land of Pizarro 
and the Incas. It is the land of gold; the famous El Dorado 
of the west, and we are indeed of commercial-minded clay 
if our hearts do not beat a stroke faster with some touch of 
enthusiasm. Peru ! — thedarkeningshore-linemightbepeopled 
with the ghosts of mail-clad Spaniards, the sinister forms of 
inquisitorial Jesuits, whilst to seaward the phantom form 
of some Draconian frigate might be driving 'mid the wrack 
of the freshening breeze. What is that vessel in the western 
offing? is it the barque of some sturdy buccaneer from 
Plymouth ? No, it is a piratical craft of another nature — 
piratical, that is, from the point of view of the British ship- 
owner, for it is a German steamer of the excellent Kosmos 
Line, which has been picking up cargo at the ports along 
the coast — ports served otherwise only by the British and 
British-Chilean lines. 

But we are the true Phoenicians on this great coast ; we, 
the British, who bring cargo hither, and transport it hence. 
Adown this endless coast from Panama to Valparaiso four 
thousand miles or more, these British-built, British-offtcered, 
and well-appointed steamers, tarrying from port to port, 
journey incessantly. The Phoenician mariners cast anchor 
repeatedly ; alongside come the lighters of the natives, and 
the incessant rolling and grinding of the steam-winch, which 
forces the hold of our steamer to disgorge bales of Manchester 
goods, bar iron, cases of imported whisky, pieces of 
machinery, and other matters of miscellaneous merchandise ; 
whilst in return we take on bales of cotton or sacks of sugar, 
from the plantations along the coast; bundles of coca leaves 
(for export for cocaine-making, growing nowhere else in the 
world), sacks of silver or copper ore from the mines of the 
distant Andes, which loom up in grey majesty to the east, 
and other singular produce of the coast, or of the mountains, 
and the forest regions beyond. Every package is laid bare 
to the eye of the passenger as it is swung up and over by 
the clanking chain ; and when the great lighter is filled — 
with a. free accompaniment of Spanish oaths — the rowers bend 
their backs to the sweeps, cleaving the rolling green waves, 
surf-crested, between us and the harbour-mole. 

I have often asked myself which is the most pleasant mode 



272 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

of travelling in South America — as perhaps many travellers 
have asked themselves — whether steamer, railway, or mule- 
back. This might seem at first a trite observation, but it has 
been often forced upon me by sheer contrast. When I have, 
after weeks of journeying in the saddle, among the snowy 
Cordilleras of the Andes or upon the appalling coast deserts 
of Chile or Peru, come down to a seaport, sold my mules 
and given away their trappings (perhaps to some faithful 
peon who has accompanied me), discarded the stout dress 
of the rider for the garb of more civilized man, and exchanged 
the rude fare of the sierra for the steamer's table, I have 
heaved a sigh of satisfaction. The small boat with myself 
and my steamer trunks — battered from much ascension by 
mule-bearing up precipices, and scored with the marks of 
raw-hide ropes which bound them on to the backs of refrac- 
tory mules in that way which only the Spanish-American 
arriero can perform, has borne me away from the little port 
on the arid coast. I have said good-bye to the uniformed 
Custom House custodian, or the captain of the port, who, 
with true Spanish-American urbanity has kept me from too 
lonely British contemplation of the Pacific waves. I have 
purchased my last packets of native cigarettes and posted 
my last letter. The semi-Indian boatman bends his arms, 
the long wharf stretching out beyond the shallow Pacific 
beach recedes, as does the foam-fringed shore, whilst the 
rocky promontory, under whose shelter from the rolling sea 
the funnelled steamer lies, develops to my view. So we go 
seaward, to where El Vapor lies at her anchor. The swarthy 
boatman hoists up the battered trunks — and perhaps some 
sacks of mineral samples torn from those far-off Cordilleran 
mines, receiving with doffed hat and smile my added tip. 
Poor chap; the row was a stiff one, for the captain of the 
steamer (out of sheer perversity the captain of the port had 
said, though probably there were cogent reasons) had 
anchored miles off shore. 

One thing dawns upon me as I hear again the familiar 
English tongue after my long sojourn among the Spanish- 
speaking peoples of the coast — the steamer is a bit of Britain. 
A Cockney steward, who has sailed these seas perhaps more 
times than Drake and all the famous buccaneers together. 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 273 

takes my ticket and with respectful "Yessir" hears my 
requirements and assigns me a cabin. 

To have a comprehensive idea of that great part of western 
South America which forms the repubHc of Peru its 
geographical character must be grasped. Peru is naturally 
divided into three zones — the coast, the mountains, and the 
forest regions respectively. First is the coast. This is a 
semi-arid strip of land between the Andes and the ocean, some 
1,400 miles long, from Ecuador in the north to Chile in the 
south. The coast is beaten with a tearing surf, and, whilst 
there are numerous ports at which the steamers call, only 
three or four of them — as Callao, Chimbote, and Payta — are 
first-class harbours, the others being open roadsteads. This 
coast-zone varies in width about 90 to 120 miles, and is 
traversed by small rivers at great distances apart, which 
descend from the Andes to the sea. Between the cultivable 
lands and cities, which ow'e their existence to these streams, 
great arid deserts are encountered, for the Peruvian littoral 
is subject to the peculiar condition of having no appreciable 
rainfall, due mainly to the presence of the Andes, which 
mountains intercept the moisture-laden winds coming from 
the east. 

The coast of Peru is a long barren stretch with few 
indentations of any magnitude, except the harbours already 
mentioned; and as we behold it from the steamer's deck we 
might ask ourselves what of value to man could come from 
so inhospitable-appearing a littoral. The ancient civiliza- 
tion of the Incas did not dwell here, and the use of the 
"silent highway" was unknown to them. Through count- 
less ages the surges have beat upon the guano-covered and 
seal-haunted rocks, unploughed by the craft of man, save it 
were an occasional balsa, or native raft of woven rushes, such 
as the Indian of the northern part used for traffic to the 
Gulf of Guayaquil. It was a singular native craft of this 
nature — a rush craft with mat sails — v^hich the ship of Pizarro 
overhauled near Tumbez ; the gold and pearls it carried firing 
the imagination of the adventurous conquistadores. For the 
self-contained empire of the Incas had little use for the sea 
except for fishing; and as an example of the endurance and 
swiftness of the royal couriers it is recorded that the Inca 

T 



274 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

chiefs, in their palace at Cuzco one hundred miles inland from 
the coast, over the fastnesses of the maritime Cordillera, eat 
fresh fish brought in daily by the runners. The same is 
recorded of the Aztec Emperor of Mexico, Montezuma, in 
his capital in the heart of the country; but his fish came 
not from the Pacific but from the Gulf of Mexico. 

To-day, between the cultivable lands and the cities which 
owe their being to these oases on the banks of the stream, 
the great arid deserts stretch, and along their seaward edge 
the Pacific surge beats ceaselessly, the silence otherwise 
unbroken save by the barking of sea-lions upon some peaked 
promontory, and the cry of the palmiped birds which fly 
in myriads at times upon the sea-line. I have observed, in 
places upon these great stretches of sandy wastes, areas of 
what once had been cultivated lands, and lines of driftwood 
much above the level of the sea. "What are these? " I have 
asked my mule-driver, and he replies that they are the result 
of the terrible "terremote" and "olas" — the earthquakes and 
tidal waves which have, in former time, devastated the Peru- 
vian and Chilean coasts. As to the irrigation of the lands 
in the neighbourhood of the coast towns this is necessary, 
for the Peruvian littoral is subject to the peculiar condition 
of having no appreciable rainfall, due mainly to the presence 
of the Andes, as mentioned before, and partly to the effect 
of the cool equatorial current which impinges here upon the 
Peruvian coast. Due to these agencies the climate of the 
littoral is equable, cool, and healthy generally, and there is 
absolutely no natural vegetation — except a little grass and 
Algarobo scrub — the latter principally in the north. 

Secondly, crossing this coast-zone, we shall enter among 
the foot-hills of the Andes, and ascend the slopes of the 
maritime Cordillera. The Andes consist of two, and in 
places three, main parallel chains, the summits of which are 
capped with perpetual snow. Between them, at high eleva- 
tions above sea-level, are great plateaux, subject to heavy 
rainfall ; and profound river-valleys, most of which have 
their outlet, not to the Pacific Ocean, only a hundred or two 
hundred miles away, but to the Amazon, and so to the 
Atlantic, three thousand miles away. 

Thirdly, leaving these rugged and beautiful, if inclement, 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 275 

regions, we shall descend the eastern slope of the Andes 
and enter the boundless river- and forest-system of the basin 
of the Upper Amazon. This is a region of which large por- 
tions are still unexplored, and of which parts are inhabited 
by tribes of savage Indians, and it is generally known as the 
"Montana." 

These three natural zones of coast, mountains, and forests, 
which I have traversed on repeated occasions, are exceedingly 
varied in all their conditions of topography, climate, and 
natural resources. The means of access to these last-named 
regions — an important point for consideration — must be con- 
sidered difficult. But it is not to be expected that a country 
like Peru, traversed throughout its length by a great natural 
barrier of mountains, with passes generally at 15,000 or 
i6,ooQ feet above sea level, could yet be equipped very fully 
with roads and railways. Nevertheless two railways traverse 
the Andes, and others are projected or under construction. 
Of these two railways the northernmost is the famous Oroya 
Line, which, leaving tide-water at Callao, passes through 
Lima and ascends the Andes to an elevation of 15,660 feet 
above sea-level — the highest railway in the world — and within 
one day the traveller is taken from the warm climate of the 
coast up to the region of perpetual snow. The other Peru- 
vian trans-Andine railway is some five hundred miles to the 
southward of the Oroya Line : and leaving the port of 
Mollendo, it ascends to Arequipa and Lake Titicaca, crossing 
the Cordillera at an elevation of 14,660 feet above sea-level, 
and running thence to the famous old Inca capital of Cuzco. 
Beyond these two important routes of travel the remaining 
railways of Peru are short lines from the seaports, crossing 
the coast-zone and terminating at the base of the Andes. 
There is, however, an important branch line from Oroya to 
Cerro de Pasco, where an important new copper-producing 
industry has been set going of recent years. As to the roads 
in Peru, there are practically none except the numerous mule- 
tracks, which give access to the towns and villages of the 
interior and the mines, and which are not practicable for 
vehicles. In some cases, as you journey along these roads, 
so precipitous are they, and so remarkably do they wind 
among the precipices and ravines, that the town to which 



T 2 



27G THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

you are journeying is seen thousands of feet below you, a 
day or more before you get there. Perhaps you encounter 
a train of laden mules just as you are passing one of these 
precipitous places, and some care is necessary to avoid being 
crowded off the path or injured by the packages they carry, 
which stick out on either side of them. It does not soothe 
your temper to be prodded in the leg with the corner of a 
sheet of corrugated iron, or a baulk of timber, or a bale 
of merchandise ! However, the dangers and discomforts of 
the trail are often compensated for by the grandeur of the 
scenery and the interest of the journey, especially in the 
mountain regions. Nevertheless, conditions of travel in 
Peru, away from the lines of railway, must be looked upon 
as arduous and difficult, although they do not present neces- 
sarily impossible obstacles to development. 

To turn now to a description of the natural resources and 
products of the country, it will be advisable to describe these 
as pertaining to the three respective zones of coast, moun- 
tains, and forests. In general terms, agriculture and matters 
pertaining thereto are a greater source of wealth at present 
than minerals and mining, notwithstanding the great wealth 
of minerals awaiting exploitation. Indeed, Peru has been 
likened to "a beggar sitting upon a pile of gold," the mean- 
ing of which is that the country's natural wealth is vast; but 
capital and enterprise for its extraction are lacking. 

The principal source of wealth and industry on the coast- 
zone is the growing of the sugar-cane and the manufacture 
of sugar and rum ; the growing and export of cotton ; and the 
production of wine. The Peruvian planters claim a high 
yield of cane and sugar per acre from the soil, greater than 
that of Java, Hawaii, or Louisiana; and the yield is given 
in Government publications as several times greater than 
that of any of those famous districts. The sugar estates are 
generally situated on the margins of the rivers crossing the 
coast-zone, and are irrigated by means of canals from these 
rivers. Among the most productive valleys are those of 
Chicama, Trujillo, Chimbote and Santa in the north; the 
Rimac valley, near Lima; Caiiete and the Tambo valley, 
further south. A good deal of British capital is invested in 
the production of sugar in this zone, generally with gratify- 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 277 

ing results; and many of the sugar estates, both Peruvian 
and British, are large and powerful concerns. Typical of 
the latter may be mentioned the Santa Barbara estate of the 
British Sugar Company, producing some twenty-five thou- 
sand tons of sugar annually, and involving the constant 
upkeep of ten thousand acres of cane. On most of the estates 
large quantities of rum are manufactured, much of which is 
exported to the interior and to Bolivia. Unfortunately the 
consumption of alcohol among the Peruvian and Bolivian 
Indians is an increasing vice, and is beginning to have a 
markedly injurious effect upon the native working population 
of the highlands. Upon these sugar estates, Japanese 
labourers are now being employed. Very few negroes, how- 
ever, are encountered upon the littoral of Peru, and none 
whatever in the highlands, owing to the cold climate of the 
latter regions. Indeed, it is interesting to observe how 
Nature preserves the highlands of the Andes for the indigen- 
ous people. The negro will not go there, and the Chinaman 
is not plentiful. I once ascended from the hot coast-zone 
to the uplands, with a Peruvian negro mule-driver, whom I 
had employed, and his main desire was to finish the journey 
quickly, and get back to his warm village on the sands ! 

The sugar-cane flourishes up to an elevation — above sea- 
level — of 4,500 feet, on the Pacific slope. It is also culti- 
vated, to a considerable extent, in the inter-andine valleys and 
the Montana, or eastern slope, and is cultivated as high as 
six thousand feet elevation. The average value in recent 
years of the sugar export of Peru has been about one and 
a half million pounds sterling. The home consumption is 
about thirty thousand tons per annum. 

Cotton cultivation is an important industry in the coast- 
zone, grown under irrigation. The plantations extend from 
the seashore to sixty miles inland, along some of the valleys, 
and the principal varieties grown are the Egyptian and the 
native kinds. Peruvian cottons are favourably known on 
the British market, especially the "full rough" and the 
"moderately rough," which are of excellent and unique 
qualities. The principal cotton-growing valleys are those of 
Piura, Lima, lea, and Tambo de Mora. The annual value 
of the cotton export is in the neighbourhood of half a million 



278 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

sterling, and it is increasing; more land is being put under 
cultivation, owing to higher prices. There is some British 
capital invested in the production of cotton. 

As regards the conditions of the coast-zone generally, it 
may be stated that the climate is good and temperate. 
Indeed, it is remarkable in this respect, as will be judged from 
the mean temperature, which ranges from 63° F. in the 
south to 77° F. in the north. No other country in the 
world in similar latitudes (3° to 19" S.) offers so cool a 
temperature, and the traveller coming from Panama and 
Guayaquil upon the same coast finds unexpected relief from 
the extreme heat of those places. Comparison between the 
Pacific coast of Peru and the Atlantic coast of Brazil in the 
same latitude shows a remarkable difference in favour of 
the Peru, Lima giving an average of 66° F. and Bahia 
77° F. This condition in Peru is due to the absence of 
moisture, the proximity of the Andes, and the existence of 
the Humbolt current. 

Agriculture upon this coast-zone can only be extended by 
means of further irrigation works, and this calls for foreign 
capital, and offers a remunerative field for the employment 
of such, especially in cotton-growing. The cities and towns 
of the littoral are largely dependent for their means of sub- 
sistence upon produce brought in by steamers and schooners, 
and the growing population calls for extended cultivation. 
The establishing of cold-storage and chilled meat depots, 
both in Peruvian and Chilean coast towns, ought to prove a 
paying enterprise, according to investigations I have made, 
as it would tend to regulate the great fluctuations in the 
price of meat and other provisions, for all cattle are imported 
or brought down from the interior. 

The principal inhabitants of the animal world on the Peru- 
vian coast are the myriads of web-footed sea-birds — the 
palmipeds — the producers of the famous guano deposits, 
which have been so prominent a feature in the recent history 
of Peru. No nitrate beds of any importance have been 
worked in Peruvian territory north of Tarapaca, although 
some exist in Arica. The life of the Chilean deposits is 
generally estimated at about forty years, although it is possible 
that this is much under-estimated, and it has been stated that 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INC AS 279 

new ground is available for a supply for a century ; but this is 
very doubtful. The resources of the Peruvian coast-zone 
must always be mainly agricultural, dependent entirely upon 
irrigation, which latter condition is by no means unfavour- 
able, ensuring as it does a regularity in the crops. The area 
of land in this zone capable of such cultivation is estimated 
at fifty million acres, of which only one and a half millions 
are cultivated at present. Under the influence of water a 
large portion of the appalling deserts or pampas of this zone, 
which in some cases are as destitute of vegetation as the 
Sahara, can be turned into fruitful plantation, after the 
manner of California. 

The next region to be considered is that of the sierra — the 
slopes and highlands of the mighty Andes of Peru. We 
have heard much recently about Tibet. Peru, indeed, has 
been well termed the Tibet of America, and the analogy is 
very marked. Great mountain ranges, divided by high, bleak 
plateaux, profound valleys, lakes, and swamps,' all crowned 
by the stupendous summits and peaks of the Cordilleras, with 
a crest of perpetual snow — such are the Andes of Peru and 
Bolivia. Beautiful, solitary, rigorous, are these vast high 
regions, and the gleaming, culminating snow-clad peaks, 
tinged with the sunrise or sunset glow and piercing the blue 
heavens up to twenty thousand feet above sea-level, never 
fade entirely from the recollection of the traveller who has 
dwelt among them, or essayed their ascent. It fell to my 
lot to ascend and cross several snowy peaks and passes 
untrodden by human foot. However, in Peru, instead of 
opposition to travel, as in Tibet, according to the accounts, 
hospitality is encountered, or, at any rate, among people of 
Spanish descent. On some occasions, on arriving at a 
remote town and presenting my introductions — or even with- 
out such — the principal citizen of the place has prepared a 
feast for me and invited his friends, delighted at the advent 
of an Englishman on a scientific errand, in a place so cut off 
from the happenings of the outside world, and I retain 
pleasant recollections of their hospitality. On the other 
hand, among the Cholos and the Indians of some remote 
regions the greatest distrust and lack of hospitality is encoun- 
tered, and nothing even in the way of necessary food can 



280 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

be purchased. In some of my long journeys into these 
places, on one or two occasions I have been obliged to go 
without food for days, except what little remained in the 
saddle-bags, or to take it by force, leaving double its value 
in the hands of its protesting owners. This, however, is 
rare, and, as a rule, the Cholos of the most remote places 
are amenable to reason, once they know they are going to 
be treated with fairness, and not abused ; and I have always 
told them that an Englishman, at least, always pays for what 
he takes ! On long prospecting expeditions I have found it 
well to live as much as possible on what the country passed 
through afforded, carrying, of course, such essentials as tea, 
coffee, sugar, extract of beef, etc., in the saddle-bags of my 
men. Indeed, a few hints for intending travellers may not 
be out of place here ; for on any tour of discovery, or 
examination of mining regions, reliance has to be placed 
much on one's own resources, as railways are soon left far 
behind. Such provisions as eggs, chickens, bread, or— 
failing that — toasted maize, potatoes, rice and fruit, can 
generally be purchased at the village, and, in the cold regions, 
a sheep can be carried along on mule-back, and pieces cut 
off as required (not a live animal, of course!). No traveller 
will ever venture forth into the Peruvian interior without 
his own saddle, which he will purchase in Lima, an English 
saddle being quite unsuitable, and an equally important part 
of your impedimenta is your folding-cot and bedding : on 
no account go without it if you intend to leave the line of 
railway. No great preparations for clothing are needed — 
an ordinary tweed riding-suit and leather leggings and shoot- 
ing-boots are the main essentials, with a thick woollen poncho 
for the uplands and mountain regions, a thin white one for 
the coast deserts; and an indiarubber riding-cape for the 
rain. I know of no greater pleasure than, properly equipped 
with all your worldly belongings securely packed upon a 
couple of pack-mules in charge of a careful mule-driver, to 
start forth into those little-known regions of Western 
America, there to discover what Nature holds of use for 
science and for commerce. 

The uplands of the Andes are inhabited by the hardy Cholo 
race, the descendants of the Quechuas and the Aymaras, who 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 281 

formed the population of the Peruvian empire under the 
Incas. They live principally by agriculture and the raising 
of cattle, llamas, and alpacas, and the sale of wool, and also 
by mining. The singular and graceful llama, or American 
camel, is encountered everywhere near man's habitation in 
these high remote regions, and it forms the most valued 
possession of the poor Cholo, doing all his carrying trade 
and furnishing him, in conjunction with the alpaca, with the 
valuable commodity of wool, which is readily purchased for 
export to Liverpool. The annual value of the wool export 
is rather more than half a million sterling. 

The Cholos and Indians inhabiting the Andine uplands — 
their habitat ranges from seven thousand to seventeen thou- 
sand feet or more in elevation above sea-level — have retained 
one notable condition from their Inca progenitors : they are 
independent land-holders. Each Cholo and his family is the 
owner of a small holding, which he cultivates with alfalfa, 
maize, potatoes, or whatever product the position affords, 
thus supporting himself and his family in a way which 
renders him practically independent of the governing white 
Peruvian race. The Cholo asks little from civilization, or 
at any rate from the civilization of the Europeans, who 
destroyed that of his former Inca rulers, which was certainly 
not inferior to that which governs him at present. Indeed, 
the main blessings of modern civilization, if such they may 
be termed, in those remote regions might be described in two 
words — priestcraft and alcohol ! What these two words con- 
vey it is beyond the province of this chapter to discuss. The 
land system of these people is worthy of note, or at least the 
land laws under which they lived in the time of the Incas are, 
especially to-day in view of the question of small holdings in 
Britain. All the land was measured up and proper areas 
apportioned to every inhabitant, the area being increased as 
his family increased. They were obliged to work the land, 
and beggary, poverty, or destitution were not permitted, 
as every inhabitant was provided for and enjoyed his birth- 
right of a piece of land, by the working of which he could 
maintain his family. Taxes to the Incas were payable in 
goods, not money, and in goods — as clothes, arms, or other 
matters — such as the particular district afforded. Indeed, so 



282 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

beneficent does the social system under the Incas appear to 
have been that it has given rise to the assertion that the 
primitive people of the Andes enjoyed a rule under their 
native princes such as has never been enjoyed by any Chris- 
tian nation. To-day, all over the interminable slopes and 
valleys of the Andes these small holdings are encountered, 
abandoned in the greater part, owing to the extraordinary 
shrinkage of the population since the advent of the Spaniards. 
I have stood upon the summit of the hills as the sun cast 
shadows over their slopes, bringing into relief, with a 
singular chequered appearance, the innumerable small 
terraces, or "andenes," as these small holdings were termed, 
excavated on the upper, and banked up on the lower sides, 
to form flat places for cultivation. Many of these are used 
to-day, and the inhabitants of remote villages still elect their 
petty land-officials, whose duty it is to assign the use of the 
water in turn, for irrigation of the lands, as in the time of 
the Incas. But the greater part of them lie untenanted and 
abandoned, like the innumerable ruins of villages, cities, 
castles, and temples which the traveller encounters throughout 
this vast region of the Peruvian Sierra. 

It is not within the province of this book to enter into 
much detailed description of the great monuments in stone 
which have been left scattered about the uplands of the 
Andes, extending over many thousands of miles of territory. 
I have dwelt upon them fully in my books upon Peru.^ The 
Incas cut and carried great monoliths and erected buildings 
of cut stone of such solid beauty as excite our admiration even 
to-day, as we look upon their ruins ; and wonderful roads 
and bridges. There they stand, these ruins, in marked con- 
trast to the flimsy adobe structures of the present occupiers 
of the land — temples, palaces, fortresses, and strange build- 
ings of religious and astronomical purpose, and we may 
stand there amid their crumbling walls, and mark, as did the 
votive priests of old, the sun-god of the Incas as it sinks 
in the Occident. Indeed, the romance of history and the 
romance of geography are more strongly linked together in 
Peru than in any other country of the Americas ; for the 
civilization of the Incas and the structures which they made 

1 Peru a.nd The Andes and the Amazon. 




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PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 283 

and left, together with their environment of stupendous 
mountains and boundless plateau, a habitat from twelve 
thousand to sixteen thousand feet above sea-level, form cer- 
tainly a conjunction of elements scarcely to be encountered 
anywhere else. The Aztec civilization, temples and environ- 
ment in Mexico, three thousand miles away, are remarkable 
and unique, and similar in many respects to those of Peru ; 
but they do not present the condition of great elevation 
above sea-level as docs the work of the Incas. The city of 
Mexico, the highest point where Aztec stone structures exist, 
is eight thousand feet above sea-level ; Cuzco, Tiahuanako, 
Cajamarca, Huanuco, and other of the centres of early Peru- 
vian stone-shaping art range up to 11,500 feet, whilst some 
of the formerly unknown ruins of fortresses which I have 
visited are situated at more than sixteen thousand feet above 
sea-level. 

The main groups of ruins of cities and temples are found 
along the line of what were the great Inca roads; one of 
which traverses the Andes longitudinally, along the line of 
least resistance — as was natural — paralleling the Cordilleran 
structure, the other following along the coast plains, in a 
more or less analogous direction. Whilst these roads, as I 
have pointed out elsewhere, were structures of great value 
and ingenuity, forming great arteries of travel and means 
of communication from one end of the country to the other, 
there is no doubt that their importance as engineering struc- 
tures has been greatly overrated by the Spanish writers and 
others. They were indeed all that was requisite, for it is 
to be recollected that no wheeled vehicles w^ere known to the 
Incas, nor did they possess any saddle-animal, nor indeed 
any beast of burden except the llama, an animal which is 
quite indifferent to matters of gradient and alignment of 
roads. As to the Indian postmen, the famous chasquis of 
the Incas, who, by a system of rapid posting on foot carried 
messages along these roads at great speed from end to end 
of the country, they were equally indifferent as to whether 
they went up a hill or went round it. Indeed the Cholo to- 
day, journeying on foot from place to place in these wild, 
rugged regions, soon leaves the zig-zag of the pack-mule 
trail below him, and makes straight for the summit of the 



284 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

pass. Following the road on horse-back with my half-dozen 
Cholos behind, carrying their packs, I have sometimes 
missed them, when, on reaching the apex of the hill there 
they were a long way in front, w^aiting for me, having made 
a steep cut-off. I may remark here that the Cholo and the 
Indian of the Andes is a most exemplary bearer of burdens, 
ambling along at a shuffling pace with his fifty pounds 
without any sign of inconvenience. I have been gravely 
informed, indeed, by Peruvians of the sierra, that the Indian 
positively prefers to carry a load when on the march, and 
that if there does not happen to be one ready for his qiiipo, 
or carrying-net made of thongs, he puts some boulders therein 
instead ! I am not prepared, however, to vouch for the truth 
of this assertion. 

I have journeyed along these Inca roads in many places, 
and in fact they form the ordinary trail in some districts. 
Some of the main summits of the Andes are traversed by 
these roads; steps having been cut out and built up in the 
rock in the most inaccessible situations, leading up into the 
region of perpetual snow and crossing the very ice-cap in 
some cases, above the clouds. The principal of the two Inca 
roads, as is well known, extended from Cuzco, the "navel" 
or capital of the Inca empire, to Quito in Ecuador, a distance 
of 1,200 miles. Numerous cities w'ere situated along this 
great route, some of which form capitals of departments to- 
day, such as Huaraz, Cajamarca, etc., others being aban- 
doned and uninhabited groups of ruins, such as Old Huanuco 
and others, some of which had scarcely ever been visited 
by a foreigner until I went there. 

The ruined structures of the Incas consist of temples, 
fortresses, palaces and dwelling-houses. The principal 
feature about these is their stone-masonry ; the beautifully 
adjusted, and in some cases enormous stones and mono- 
liths which the ingenuity of this people cut and carried, 
rivalling even the builders of the Nile and the Euphrates. 
The extraordinary fortresses of Sacsaihuaman, Ollantai- 
tambo and others, are such as arouse the admiration of the 
traveller and the engineer. Hill-sides are terraced and 
ramparts built with huge, shaped blocks of stone, construc- 
tion which could only have been carried out by the mandate 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 285 

of despot monarchs with a disregard of Indian labour and 
life. The most peculiar feature of their stone-shiiping art, 
however, is the singular disregard of uniformity in the size 
and shape of the stone blocks; they all diifer in form, not 
being cubes but polygons, so that each stone was necessarily 
cut to fit its fellows in the wall, probably by the laborious 
method of continually putting it on and off in the fitting 
process. Some of the monoliths are of great size ; one of those 
at Cuzco being thirty-eight feet long and eighteen feet wide. 
No mortar was used, as a rule, yet so perfect is the joint 
between the stones that a knife-blade cannot be inserted. It 
has occurred to me, in examining these beautiful structures, 
that the method of stone-shaping was considered a nice and 
purposeful art; perhaps the giving of an individuality in 
shape to each stone obeying some custom or dictate now 
lost in the past. However this may be, all the buildings of 
the early Peruvians do not have this characteristic; some of 
the walls are built of ordinary cubical blocks of rignt-angled 
form. The arch was unknown; but long stone lintels were 
used over doorways, whilst columns have only been found 
in one group of ruins upon the coast. The observatories, 
and the pillars which were constructed about the country 
for the determining of the solstices by the Inca priests 
are in some cases still existing ; notably the remark- 
able ruins of Intihuatana, where the sun "sat down," as the 
Quecha word translates it, upon a golden stool placed upon 
a column. But most of these columns were destroyed by the 
Spanish priests, who considered them things of the devil ! 
Speaking of astronomical matters, it was borne upon me 
very practically on one occasion in Peru that I was in 
southern latitudes. I desired to establish a true meridian, 
and so I overhauled my theodolite and prepared to observe 
the elongation of Polaris. I waited until night, but I must 
have been preoccupied with home letters (letters for far-off 
Devon), for I went outside into the clear night to find my 
star. Polaris, indeed ! It was, of course, below the horizon. 
It had never been above it, or at any rate not since that 
period when the earth shifted its axis — if it ever did so ! 
So I smiled to myself and decided to try another star another 
night, by the method of equal altitudes. The little crowd of 



28G THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Cholos who had gathered round, eager to see what the 
"Ingles" was going to do, seemed to think that a perform- 
ance of some kind was expected, or so my servant said. 
WilHng to humour them, I turned the telescope of the instru- 
ment to the moon, which was shining, and let some of them 
observe the fair face of "La Luna" magnified thus by the 
glass of the theodolite. The sight afforded them matter for 
interesting speculation. "How far off is it, Don Antonio?" 
1 heard them ask of my servant, an intelligent Cholo who 
had been with me for some months. But Don Antonio was 
non-committal. "Sabe Dios ! " he replied, and this Spanish 
"God knows 1 " is generally a sufficient answer. After a 
while — " Is it the same moon that shines down in the Senor's 
(my) country ? " So I took upon myself to inform them some- 
thing of the movements of the planet. Coati the moon, and 
Inti the sun, it will be recollected, were both deities of the 
Inca progenitors of these people. Well might any one — 
Pagan or Christian^ — entertain affection for the sun on those 
snowy inclement steppes of Peru and Bolivia ! 

These high, bleak tablelands of the Peruvian Andes are 
intersected by fertile valleys, which enjoy a delicious climate 
in many cases, with semi-tropical fruits and produce in 
abundance, and in these favoured spots the towns, which form 
the centres of the white or mixed population (as distinguished 
from the Cholos and indigenous red race), have their being. 
Most of these towns are much isolated from the coast and 
the outer world, their only means of communication being 
the ill-formed pack-mule trails, which wind interminably over 
the great punas^ or highland planes, cross deep valleys and 
precipitous-sided ravines and rapid rivers, and at times 
traverse mountain passes across the perpetual snow-fields of 
the Cordilleras. Nevertheless, their inhabitants live in con- 
tentment; living is cheap; the struggle for life is less acute 
than in the manufacturing cities of North America or Europe; 
and the poorer Cholo or Indian of these regions is a far less 
trying spectacle than the pallid and starving slum-dweller of 
New York or London ! Foreigners may journey and live in 
these regions with entire security ; and with a very small 
capital at disposal can amass wealth and property, in mines, 
plantations, and commerce. 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 287 

The most enterprising foreigners in Peru are perhaps, as 
is but natural, Spaniards. I have known many Spaniards 
in Spanish-America, for they form a noticeable percentage 
of the foreign population of these countries. It is not as a 
rule, however, the best class of Spaniards which is en- 
countered there; but rather the shopkeeper class— or perhaps 
they have become shopkeepers — merchants, ranchers and 
others. This is but natural. The blue-blooded hidalgo does 
not go there since the days of the viceroys : there would be 
nothing for him to do, and your Spaniard is not a traveller 
when there is nothing further of "conquest" to be attained, 
and the only member of the Iberian aristocracy in Mexico 
or Peru are the occasional diplomatic representative. Just 
as the educated Englishman rarely visited the United States 
until recent decades, so the upper-class Spaniard does not 
visit the lands of his old colonies much. Nevertheless, the 
Spaniard encountered there is often a good fellow and a 
shrewd comerciante ; taking no wealth into the country, but 
invariably getting some out of it. Indeed, the foreigners in 
South America and Mexico may, in this connection, be 
broadly divided into two groupings : those wtio bring capital 
in and those who extract wealth from the country. In the 
first category are the British, the Americans, and some of 
the French and Germans. In the second, the Spaniards, 
Italians, Austrians, and of course the Japanese and Chinese; 
colonies of all of which peoples are found. As to the Italians, 
they are sometimes unkindly dubbed the "Chinese of 
Europe." Nevertheless, they make excellent, hard-working 
citizens of the New Latin World, and are in demand as 
colonists everywhere. A former president of Peru once 
said, having in view the urgent need of immigration for that 
country, that they must have immigrants "even if they were 
bandits from Calabria." 

But to return to the Spaniards. They are generally dis- 
tinguished by the multitude and profanity of their oaths. 
The names of the members of the Holy Family are ever pro- 
fanely on their lips, in addition to ingeniously indecent words 
and allusions such as it would manifestly be impossible to 
describe within these chaste chronicles. The American (of 
the United States) can generally hold his own as regards 



288 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

swear-words, and indeed he is unceasingly "god-damning" 
or giving tongue to indecent expletives, but he falls far short 
in depth and intricacy of oath to the man from Iberia. But 
the Spaniard works hard, whether it be behind the counter 
of his grocery or draper's shop in the cities, or whether in 
his ranch or hacienda in sugar- or cotton-growing lands, or 
whether at his mines, and shortly acquires a competence. 
He has, among other qualities, a remarkable power of get- 
ting a great deal of work out of the native or Indian popula- 
tion for very little pay ! — a quality the German possesses to 
a certain degree, but which the Briton lacks. There is still 
much of the conquistador about the Spaniard, and Cortes 
and Pizarro dwell in every Mexican or Andine village ! 

Personally I have enjoyed a good deal of hospitality from 
Spanish settlers, in my long journeyings in these regions, 
and I retain pleasant recollections of them in this respect. 
They have brought out the best they had; for an English 
traveller nothing was too good, and there must be in the 
Spanish character some real regard for the sons of Albion — 
their ancient and resolute foes in centuries past on that Great 
Pacific Coast I One evening I was riding, weary and 
melancholy, for I had started early and it was late ; the 
road had been rocky, and the deserts and defiles I had 
passed for that and two previous days, in my way up from 
the coast, had been sun-beat and parched. I longed for a 
cup of tea (please do not smile with scorn, kind reader, for 
tea is a wonderful restorer on such marches), but league 
after league went by and still my servant had said it was 
but "one league more" to the hacienda. These Peruvian 
mountain leagues, indeed, are, when you are tired, of great 
length, although a real Spanish league is but five kilometres, 
or three English miles and a tenth. The native of the 
Andes speaks of leagues, but knows not what he says, and 
when at a turn of the road I saw the hacienda still miles 
away upon the opposing side of a valley I felt it best not to 
say what I thought about his units of distance measurements. 
I can look back on many days of such rides, when but to set 
the teeth and steel the mind to patience and the body to 
further effort was the only way to arrive. For in the Andes 
when the glory of the morn has passed and the midday sun 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 289 

has beat down upon your head and the cold evening winds 
(and perhaps rain or snow in the higher places into the 
bargain) have blown full upon you, then does the depres- 
sion of fatigue begin to tell — the landscape becomes a cursed 
desert, and the rock-forms but stupid reiterations of a blind 
and brutal nature ! . . . 

Suddenly at a turn of the road the hoofs of my mule 
splashed in a mountain stream; beautiful flowery shrubs 
met overhead in a narrow caiion through which the trail 
was winding ; fruit trees and flowers appeared — the gleam 
of the oranges and the ripening ears of maize; a dog rushed 
out from somewhere and an Indian woman peered from a 
hut door; and in a moment my mule clattered up a stony 
causeway towards a wide courtyard, flanked by the building 
of the hacienda. I saw a veranda with chairs upon it and 
an open window behind. And as I rode my tired steed 
beneath and pulled him up, a Spanish voice exclaimed, 
"Pase, pase usted, seiior ! " and a stout man in hacienda 
garb, with a horseman's hat, descended there from the 
veranda. As he spoke he clapped his hands, the common 
signal in Peru for calling a domestic, and a couple of depend- 
ants ran forth to take my mule. Without ceremony I threw 
foot to earth and grasped the outstretched hand of the 
hacendado, and with many inquiries as to the road and the 
heat he conducted me to the balcony, and before I could say 
yea or nay he had brought forth a bottle and two glasses. 
"Una copita, por supuesto " (a drink, of course), and suit- 
ing the action to the word he pours out brandy and hands 
me one. We clink glasses. "Salud, senor." "A la suya, 
seiior," and the fiery but restoring cognac disappears down 
our respective throats. Meanwhile, one of the mosos, or 
servants, without necessity of exhortation from his master, 
has taken my wearied mule, which is now — I know as well 
as if I had directed it — burying his nose in fragrant alfalfa; 
whilst I knew equally well that in the house full preparations 
for my adequate entertainment would have been set on foot 
already. 

Now it is to be recollected that I had never heard, or 
scarcely heard, of my new host before, and that he had 
possibly never heard of me. Quite enough it was that I 
u 



290 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

was a ccihallcro, a foreigner, upon the road, and that evening 
was at hand. His hospitahty was, therefore, a disinterested 
hospitahty, of the patriarchal kind which, alas ! inevitably 
disappears in new commercial communities. 

My host was a Spaniard : I knew it instantly from his 
bearing and his accent (as also from his oaths, which, how- 
ever, he only used then in speech with his dependants), for 
the Spaniard's pronunciation of words betrays him imme- 
diately and marks out the difference from the Spanish- 
American. This difference lies mainly in the pronunciation 
of the "z" as "th" rather than as "s," and of the "c" also 
as "th" instead of as "s" — the latter method being the 
Spanish-American. There are other differences, equally 
marked, and the whole enunciation is more virile in the case 
of the Spaniard : more self-assertive. Well, I threw myself 
into his comfortable chair on the veranda and accepted a 
cigarette, and stirred from my mood to British-Spanish 
speech by his cognac and his welcome, gave him the where- 
fore of my journey thither, which was to examine a group of 
mines a day's ride further on within the Cordillera. His 
satisfaction was unbounded. " Hombre, que bueno ! " he 
exclaimed, as who might say, "Man alive! what a good 
thing ! " for the Spaniard always prefaces such a remark 
with "hombre" or "man." "Why, I am part owner of the 
mines; and Ojald" (would to God) "that I could sell them 
to an English syndicate and return to Spain for a visit. I 
am growing old here ! " 

Now the good Spaniard's hospitality was reaping already 
some reward. It was a vast advantage for him that an Eng- 
lish engineer, with connections with capitalists, should have 
come up from the coast to examine his mines. Had he been 
a churl I should have passed on, tired as I was, to some more 
humble stopping place ; as it was, I thought of the words 
of an old ballad — 

" Yet tarry, my son, till the burning noon passes, 
Let boughs of the lemon tree shelter thy head ; 
The juice of ripe muscatel flows in my glasses, 
And rushes fresh strewn for siesta are spread." 

And the incident, good reader, brings us to these resources 
of Peru which ever have formed for the foreigner, and doubt- 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 291 

less ever will form, the most alluring field of work and 
enterprise — the mines. This vast region of the Andes, 
embodies in Peru a mineral-bearing zone, 1,500 miles long 
and up to 500 miles wide; and within it every metal and 
mineral known to commerce is encountered. Silver, gold, 
copper, lead, quicksilver, coal, iron, zinc, petroleum, vana- 
dium, molybdenite, bismuth, sulphur, nickel, cobalt, salt, 
and everything else are found and worked in Peru. Yet, 
notwithstanding this great wealth, the mineral industry at 
present is small relatively, although it is increasing rapidly, 
having triplicated itself since 1903. The value of the mineral 
and metal export annually at present is about three millions 
sterling. The backward position of mining is due to the 
lack of foreign capital, added to the slow development of 
means of communication, and to the fact that Peru has not 
generally enjoyed a favourable credit in European com- 
mercial centres — a condition, however, which is now being 
overcome to some extent. 

The most widely distributed minerals are gold, silver, 
copper, lead and coal. Gold occurs on both the western and 
eastern sides of the Peruvian Andes, although as alluvial or 
placer deposits only on the eastern side. Indeed, Peru may 
be looked upon as an exceedingly important source of gold 
for the world's future needs. For engineering and mining 
purposes the occurrence of Peruvian gold may be divided 
into three classes ; and these, in the relative order of their 
importance for present working, are — first, the great banks 
and deposits of gold-bearing gravel for hydraulicing ; second, 
the exceedingly numerous lodes of auriferous quartz; and 
third, the areas of gold-bearing deposits susceptible to dredg- 
ing. As to the matter of the geological origin of the aurifer- 
ous material, I may say that the existence of alluvial gold is 
due to the disintegration of innumerable gold-bearing lodes 
and veins which traversed, and still traverse the rocks of the 
great Cordilleras. Geological epochs of heavy rainfall and 
orographic change, especially under glacial action, have 
caused the disintegration of these rocks as time went on, the 
gold contained having accumulated in the bottoms of the 
great lakes which formerly existed in the Andine plateau 
and valleys. A remaining instance of these is the great lake 
u 2 



292 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

basin of Titicaca, which even to-day forms a hydrographic 
entity, with no outlet for its waters except that of evapora- 
tion. In some cases these enormous deposits of auriferous 
earth and gravel were subsequently upheaved by orographic 
change, and at the present time there exists a series of such 
deposits along the very summit of the Peruvian and Bolivian 
Andes, upon the actual water-parting of the continent, at 
elevations above sea-level of fifteen thousand to eighteen 
thousand feet. It is not to be supposed that the remarkable 
situation of these deposits renders them unworkable. Some 
of them which I have visited have been worked by the 
Indians for centuries, and in one or two cases modern 
hydraulic systems of "monitors" have been installed there. 
In some cases, as it is natural to suppose upon the 
water-parting, water is scarce and the climate is rigorous 
at this altitude. As giving an idea of the magnitude 
of these deposits of auriferous earth, it may be stated that 
a calculation has been made of a single one that it 
contains more gold than has ever come out of the whole of 
California. 

Lower down on the eastern side of the Cordillera are some 
huge deposits of gold-bearing gravel under more favourable 
conditions for working, for at lower elevations there is abund- 
ant water and timber, whilst the climate is mild, and food 
products of any nature may be grown— conditions not en- 
countered on the high summits. One of these great aurifer- 
ous deposits, which I made a special journey to examine, is of 
several miles in length and width, and it has been calculated 
that it contains gold to the value of 40 million sterling, 
recoverable by the ordinary hydraulic methods. These 
mines were partly worked by the Incas before the advent of 
the Spaniards, and then by the brother of Pizarro. Later 
on, under one of the viceroys, works were constructed which 
cost ;{,'50o,ooo, consisting of canals, aqueducts, tunnels under 
the ridges, sluiceways, etc. At present these are much over- 
grown with vegetation, but the situation of the deposit, with 
ample water supply and good condition for the disposal of 
tailings, render it exceptionally favourable for working. 
The average value of the gravel, which was obtained by 
panning portions of the almost vertical faces of the huge 






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PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 293 

banks, which are cut down for five hundred or a thousand 
feet deep by ravines, is about two shilHngs and sixpence per 
ton of material. 

On the eastern slope of the Peruvian Andes most of the 
rivers and streams are rich in alluvial gold, and the natives 
have a system of paving river-bars with stones in some places 
and recovering the gold annually brought down by the 
freshets. These are known as "gold farms." Whether 
upon the streams which flow into the great Madre de Rios 
River in the south of Peru, or whether those of the Maraiion 
six hundred or seven hundred miles to the north, both of 
which systems I have visited, gold is recovered in consider- 
able quantities by the Indians in the form of dust and 
nuggets, and used as a medium of exchange in the villages. 
In my examination of some of these placers I found the gold 
to be easily recoverable. I recollect one old Indian woman 
who lived in a hut on the top of a great bank of gravel, full 
of gold, who used sometimes to ask me, in her broken 
Spanish and Quechua, "Has the seiior found much gold to- 
day?" If I replied in the negative, she said, "Never mind, 
I will get you some," and taking her pan, formed of a big 
gourd, such as the Indians use for gold-washing, she dis- 
appeared into some ravine, known to herself, and in the 
course of an hour or so came back to present me with gold 
dust, varying in weight up to half an ounce, w'hich she had 
washed out. Indeed, at certain seasons of the year, the 
Indians — men and women — leave their planting of maize and 
potatoes, and go gold-washing in the streams. 

The areas of land susceptible to gold recovery by means 
of dredging, are very much lower down towards the Amazon 
plain, where the rivers have lost much of their velocity, and 
the very fine gold has been deposited in the silt. There is 
no doubt that an enormous quantity of gold must exist in 
this form, the work of the elements for ages, and some 
attempts recently have been made to take in gold dredgers 
for recovering it. But this must be looked upon as extremely 
hazardous at present. A dredger is a heavy and complicated 
piece of machinery, and even when it has been conveyed 
from the Pacific coast up to the Andes and carried thereover 
and down into the montana on mule-back and by Indians it 



294 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

is likely to suffer from the lack of repairing facilities in such 
a region. Moreover, the streams are subject to very sudden 
floods due to the tropical rainfall, and the few dredges which, 
so far, have been taken in have suffered disaster from being 
carried on to the rocks by sudden floods. Perhaps the region 
is too inaccessible yet for the successful operation of these 
machines, although the engineer and explorer is loath to 
think so. As to "hydraulic" mining of the deposits of gold- 
bearing gravel, of which I have already spoken, the condi- 
tions are more favourable, and no machinery at all is required 
for their working; nothing but iron pipes and nozzles. 

We now come to the matter of gold-quartz lodes. These 
are exceedingly numerous, and are found throughout the 
country. In order that an exact idea may be formed of the 
value of such mines, I will give figures of some of those 
which I have examined, and which may be taken to some 
extent as typical : — In the southern part of the country is a 
group of gold-quartz lodes existing under favourable con- 
ditions for working. The ten main lodes or veins cross a 
deep valley, ascending the slopes and traversing a plateau 
on both sides. The outcrop of these lodes is from two thou- 
sand to three thousand feet above the lowest adit level on the 
valley floor, and the lode extends downwards to unknown 
depths. The lodes are traceable and have old workings upon 
them for a length of twelve miles, so that the dimensions of 
depth and length show the existence of a vast quantity of 
ore. As to the widths of the lodes, they vary up to eight 
feet generally, enclosing strong ore-bodies of good pay ore, 
whose value, as shown by the yield of working extending 
over some years, may be taken at two ounces per ton, 70 per 
cent, of which is recoverable by amalgamation on the battery 
plates, and the balance by the usual methods from the pyrites 
with which it is associated. Thus the ore lends itself to 
relatively cheap mining by means of adit levels, whilst 
facilities both for water-power and for treatment are obtain- 
able from the river, which flows near at hand. It is evidence 
of the backward state of mining in Peru that, notwithstand- 
ing that this good district is at a distance of only fifty or 
sixty miles from the coast, it has remained neglected. Here 
is an opportunity for capitalists. 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 295 

Another district has strong lodes up to ten feet wide in 
places, whose ore values are one and a half ounces per ton. 
The ore is a smelting ore, carrying a high percentage of lead, 
and both water-power and coal are found close at hand. Yet 
another group of old mines contains twelve strong lodes, 
whose gold values range from two to seven ounces per ton, 
with high grades of silver, and these have been extensively 
worked at the surface, for miles in length, by native miners, 
who have extracted the ore from the upper or oxidized portion 
of the lodes, and have recovered the free gold by amalgama- 
tion in their primitive appliances. In other parts of Peru I 
have examined gold and silver lodes which carry pay ore in 
great bodies up to 150 feet in width, with external old work- 
ings, and these only require modern methods and appliances 
to yield up their wealth again. In yet another district is an 
almost inexhaustible area of gold-bearing conglomerate, 
averaging about three-quarters of an ounce to the ton. All 
that has been done in such countries as Mexico can be much 
more than duplicated in Peru, where Nature has disposed 
things in the Andes on a much more stupendous scale. 

As to silver, the hills of Peru are, in certain regions, 
literally honeycombed with old workings upon rich lodes; 
and the Andes are dotted with ancient reduction works for 
recovering the white metal. From one district alone — Cerro 
de Pasco — silver was produced, from the end of the eigh- 
teenth to the end of the nineteenth centuries, to the value of 
forty million pounds; whilst the present output is somewhat 
under a million pounds. The present condition of many of 
these valuable Peruvian silver mines is that their w^orkings 
are water-logged, and the native miner's resources do not 
generally permit them to spend money in long adit levels 
or pumping machinery for drainage. I have discovered and 
examined numerous mines of this nature — sometimes aban- 
doned and without owners, open to any one who chose to lay 
claim to them — which contain great bodies of rich silver ore, 
and the cost of draining and working these would be com- 
paratively small. Great fortunes have been made almost by 
the stroke of a pick in Peru in the past in these silver mines, 
and conditions are much the same to-day. Probably no 
country in the world offers such exceptional conditions for 



296 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

those who are desirous of risking money in mining, and the 
expenditure of very large capital is not necessary. Generally 
speaking, all the elements of rich and abundant ore, proven 
lodes, water power, fuel, and cheap labour are to be found, 
and the only requisites are capital and management. 

It is remarkable how the native miners, whether pre- 
historic, whether recently, have delved into the earth even in 
the most remote region of the Andes region. I have pene- 
trated to remote Indian villages upon the upper Maranon, 
hundreds of miles away from the coast, and there, driven 
into the rocky ribs of some hidden caiion, or through the 
gravel banks of ancient river-beds, are tunnels, worked 
without the use of explosives — or, indeed, in some cases of 
ancient mines, without steel tools. An old Serrano, half 
Cholo, craved leave of my servant one evening to speak 
with me, as I sojourned in a village on the banks of the 
Maraiion, and overhearing his importunities I lent ear to 
his mumbled Spanish, the burden of which was, "Mucho 
oro, mucho oro, sefior " — "Gold, seiior, much gold." Near 
at hand, he said, was a mine where he had worked as a 
young man — he must have been nearly a hundred at the time 
I saw him — and which his father and his grandfather had 
worked before him ; and from this mine, whose locality was 
known to no one but himself, they had extracted great 
quantities of gold. With this gold they had purchased lands 
and cattle and built adobe buildings, and one of them had 
even journeyed as far as that (to him) wondrous city of 
Lima, greater than which — he questioned me— surely there 
could be no other city in the world ! Lima was about six 
days distant by mule-back and coast steamer, but I forebore 
to draw comparison with London, Paris, or New York with 
the eager old fellow. Well, the purpose of his visit to me — 
he had heard I was an "Ingles," and the reputation of the 
"Ingles" (God grant we may ever deserve it) had pene- 
trated even to the old man's ears as something embodying 
fair-dealing and staunch dealing— was to impart this secret 
of the mine to me. He did not wish to die and leave it 
undisclosed, he said, and to inform his neighbours of it 
might only have led to some trickery on their part to 
possess themselves of it. All this he informed me in a low 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 297 

voice, begging I would go on the morrow to examine the 
mine, and that if I found it valuable to take half for my 
share, work it, and give him half the proceeds for the rest 
of his life — a species of old age pension ! Poor old fellow. 
I seem to hear his quavering accents now, though doubtless 
he is part of the dust near where the Marafion rolls by. 

I consented to examine his mine, and to make a report 
upon it, and if it were of workable value to endeavour to 
induce capitalist friends to work it, with the assurance that 
his half should be respected; warning him, however, that 
the region was remote, and that it was extremely doubtful 
if capital would venture there. And on the morrow, having 
given him a paper to that effect with my signature thereto, 
I ordered an early move in the direction indicated by the 
old Serrano. 

For two nights before my man had shown me, on the 
backs of the mules as they munched their alfalfa in the 
corral, blood spots and clots from lacerations on the neck. 
At first we did not know what it was, but the old miner 
happening to observe it soon informed them. "It is the 
murcielagos, the vampires from the mine," he said, and 
further informed me how the old workings of his mine (as 
indeed I found to be the case) were full of blood-sucking 
bats. 

The entrance to the mine might have escaped any but an 
experienced eye, but as we rounded a natural buttress of 
hard conglomerate I beheld what appeared to be a mound, 
overgrown with vegetation, upon the steep hillside sloping 
towards the Maranon ; and, in effect, it was the "dump" 
beneath the entrance to the mine. Moreover, some rocks 
had been so disposed and the bushes had grown in such a 
way as cunningly to conceal the entrance, but with the aid 
of a machete the narrow opening was soon exposed to view. 
"No one has entered here for forty years," said the old man, 
"much more than the lifetime of the seiior, and it must be 
full of bats." 

Well might it have been so, and the interior of that infernal 
place I shall never forget. We entered with a torch and 
candles, but scarcely had we proceeded a hundred feet into 
the labyrinths which — the old man said — extended far into 



298 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the hill, when I heard a rushing sound, and numbers of 
bats, disturbed by the lights, flew along the passage, flap- 
ping their damp and clammy membrane-wings in my face 
and dashing out the lights. We beat a hasty retreat, for the 
stream of bats grew so strong as positively to dispute passage 
with us. "We must get boughs of trees and hold them in 
front of us," said the old miner. However, desirous of 
making the road easier for me, he entered with one of my 
men, with the object of penetrating inwards to a large 
excavated chamber which he said existed inside, there to make 
a great smoke and fire with dried grass, which would soon 
drive out the vampires. I waited a brief space, perched on 
that steep hillside sitting upon a block of stone, whilst my 
eyes wandered down to the Maranon in its gorge below and 
up to the great white sandstone capping of the escarpments 
of its V-shaped valley, thousands of feet above, on the 
opposite side. My attention was soon drawn again to the 
gaping mine-mouth, however, for streams of bats poured 
out, the result of the old man's fire; and after a space we 
entered also. A labyrinth of passages and chambers opened 
before the glimmering light of my candle as I passed on- 
wards, and — 

" Innumerable corridors far withdrawn, 

Where the rat memory doth his burrows make." 

thought I, as I threaded the old passages. After passing 
some five hundred feet or more of low irregular adit, we 
reached the chamber, a great subterranean hollowing out 
of the conglomerate, where a large body of rich ore had 
been removed. I looked up to the roof of the chamber : 
what did I see ? A seething, horrible mass of vampires 
hanging from it, in bunches covering the roof, and I could 
not repress a shudder. The floor, too, was ankle-deep in 
filth, composed of their droppings and of the blood of 
animals which the vampires had sucked, a horrible mire 
which gave a sickening odour as I trod in it. Here, then, 
were the bats which had sucked the blood of the mules : 
this was their stronghold. But the old miner was unmoved; 
"Mucho oro, senor," he said— "much gold," and pointed to 
the adits which went from the cavern, black gaping holes 
as indicated by the light of our candles and the flicker of 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 299 

the heap of burning grass which had been kindled. This is 
no. romance, kind reader, this Dantesque chamber of the bats, 
and if you desire to go there I can give you exact particulars 
of its situation. 

As regards copper, Peru may be expected to prove an 
important source of this metal when railways are extended 
into the regions where it occurs. The possibilities of Peru- 
vian copper are being shown by the Cerro de Pasco deposits 
in the central part of the country, to work which the 
American company has spent, it is stated, some fourteen 
million dollars. A line of railway, eighty miles long, and 
smelting furnaces of large capacity have been constructed, 
and are in operation ; and the district has been pronounced 
by British and American experts to be the largest copper- 
ore deposits in the world. There are other copper-bearing 
districts, only of secondary importance, more remote, how- 
ever, from lines of railway ; for it is a peculiarity of 
Peru that no copper deposits of value are found near the 
coast. 

Coal abounds throughout Peru. I have examined numer- 
ous strong seams of anthracite standing vertically, in some 
cases, with exposed outcrops, and crowning the hills for 
miles. As a rule, these have remained unworked, owing to 
difficulties of transport, but they form a valuable asset for 
the future. In one region exist hundreds of millions of tons 
of coal exposed at the surface. Short lines of railway from 
the coast are necessary to work these deposits. There are, 
in addition, important deposits of coal upon the coast, which 
have only been discovered the past few years, both in the 
northern and in the southern part of the country ; in some 
cases extending under the sea. 

There are various deposits of quicksilver ores, and innumer- 
able lead, zinc and other lodes and veins. The famous 
quicksilver mines of Peru yielded up a great revenue in past 
centuries to the Crown of Spain, and were pronounced by 
one of the viceroys as "one of the finest jewels of the Spanish 
Crown." I examined these important mines and consider 
their possibilities are very great. They might supply the 
world's market almost. In the northern part of Peru, near 
Tumbez, the petroleum wells are of considerable value; they 



300 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

are worked principally by British firms, and the output finds 
a market in the country itself. 

Leaving the high regions of the Andes we descend to the 
third natural zone of Peru, the "Montaiia," or region of the 
forests of the Amazon plain. The natural resources of this 
vast region might be summed up by saying that it forms 
one of the world's great natural storehouses for the future. 
It is traversed by navigable streams and rivers in great part ; 
all affluents of the Amazon. Of these waters ten thousand 
miles are navigable at all seasons of the year for steamers of 
varying draught ; whilst in the wet season the total available 
length of navigable waters in rivers and streams, for steamers, 
launches and canoes exceeds twenty thousand miles in Peru- 
vian territory. 

The main product of this wild region at present is rubber, 
of which the output is valued at about one and a quarter 
millions sterling per annum. In the Peruvian montaiia there 
are very extensive rubber-bearing forests, both in that part 
of the Amazon plain drained by the affluents of the Madre 
de Dios river, and, although less known, the region to the 
north drained by the Maranon and Huallaga. The principal 
Peruvian rubber-bearing trees are the shiringa, or hevea, 
and the caucho. The hevea is the superior kind, and is that 
which has made Brazil famous as a rubber-producer. The 
tree requires a rich, deep soil and abundant moisture, and at 
times grows to great size. It lends itself to cultivation, 
although not much has been done in Peru yet in rubber- 
planting. Large areas of rubber-bearing land have been 
taken up in Peru, principally by Peruvians and partly by 
foreign companies, but much land still remains unoccupied, 
which might occupy the attention of capitalists. 

Chocolate, sugar, cotton, cocaine, quinine, and a great 
variety of tropical fruits are also produced. The possibilities 
for producing chocolate are very great. This region is one 
of the most fertile in the world ; almost anything can be pro- 
duced under cultivation ; and instead of being the home, 
principally, of roving savages and monkeys it might be the 
centre of a great civilization. As to the climate, this in the 
higher region is healthy and pleasant. In the hot valleys of 
the lower region malaria is encountered, and this is the 




Aborigines of the Forests of the Peruvian Amazon Tribitaries. 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 301 

greatest scourge always, before drainage and ventilation are 
carried out. The principal drawback to the business of 
rubber-collecting is the lack of labour, for, as regards trans- 
port, the waterways of the Amazon system afford means of 
outlet to Iquitos and thence to Europe or the United States 
down the Amazon. The river port of Iquitos is destined to 
become of great importance, it cannot be doubted. It is the 
commercial centre for the whole of this vast north-eastern 
region of the Peruvian montana, and notwithstanding that it 
is 2,500 miles up the river, it is reached by the Liverpool 
steamers of the Booth Line of three thousand tons burden. 
The Amazon at Iquitos is three-quarters of a mile wide. 
One-tenth of the whole foreign trade of Peru is done with 
Iquitos, the main article of export being the rubber. 

This vast territory of the Peruvian montafia is one which 
any nation might be proud to possess, but it is time it should 
be opened up to civilization, and its natural resources turned 
to wealth. For this purpose railways are needed, and the 
construction of some is projected. Among the most import- 
ant projects of this nature is one to unite the headwaters 
of the Peruvian Amazon, or Maraiion, with the Pacific coast 
port of Payta, upon which I have been occupied for some 
time. The line has remarkable characteristics and possibili- 
ties. It will be only four hundred miles long, yet it will 
create a new transcontinental route of trade and travel between 
the Atlantic and the Pacific seaboards — a route of which the 
three thousand miles of the Amazon, navigable for steam- 
ships, forms the natural highway. The line will cross the 
Andes at the low elevation of 6,600 feet above sea-level— 
the only low gap existing in the many thousands of miles 
of snow-bound Cordillera, which extend throughout Ecuador, 
Peru, and Chile. The important geographical conditions 
and the possibilities of the route across South America in 
its widest portion have never been brought forward before, 
and the fact that steam navigation from Europe can be carried 
on upon the Amazon, to within 260 miles of the Pacific Coast, 
is not generally grasped. 

One evening I took my seat upon a tongue of land which 
marked the confluence of two small rivers of the Peruvian 
"Montaiia"; part of the system of streams which fall into 



302 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

the great jMadre de Dios River, a tributary of the mighty 
Amazon of Brazil. The tongue of land was formed of 
Silurian slates and masses of gleaming iron pyrites and veins 
of white quartz, all laid bare and polished by the overflowing 
of the waters in times of flood, waters whose now chastened 
flow slid gently by me, for it was the "dry" season, or 
time of least rainfall. A cloud of yellow butterflies flew 
around, many of them alighting on the rock and upon my 
clothes and hat ; whilst an occasional taverna — a species of 
bee of that region which keeps buzzing around you like a 
wearisome conversationalist, and will not be stilled, droned 
its parting good-bye. Tangled masses of brushwood and 
forest, which safe to say had never been penetrated by the 
foot of the white man, arose upon the margins of the stream, 
growing upon enormous banks of auriferous soil and gravel 
— the upheaval bed of some river or lake of earlier epochs. 
I was tired, for I had just scrambled down a precipice 
2,500 feet high, or at any rate my aneroid showed it to be 
about that — comfortably tired and basking in the warmth 
of the sun, which was now going down. A little higher up the 
tongue of land my Cholos were busy over the camp-fire, 
cooking the evening meal; and they had prepared my bed 
under a cedar tree upon a snug ledge of rock, with soft 
aromatic boughs beneath the blanket, and a pieoe of Silurian 
slate (covered with a blanket) for a pillow. Have you ever 
slept with a piece of Silurian slate for a pillow, kind reader ? 
No doubt the question will remind you of the incident in 
which some one playfully "caught the professor in the 
abdomen with a chunk of Old Red Sandstone." But I can 
assure you that there is much of charm in such close con- 
verse with Nature; much of pleasure in contemplating these 
great uninhabited regions of the Americas. 

My reflections turned to the benefit which man might 
enjoy from the cultivation of these great regions of the Upper 
Amazon. Nothing has ever obsessed me so greatly as the 
observation of Nature's unused resources together with the 
recollection of the starving poor and the unemployed of the 
world's great civilized cities — London, New Yotk, Paris, 
Chicago — all of whose mean streets and hopeless poor I have 
seen. Great Spirit of Providence, when will nations awake 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 303 

to some wise organization of their people and the use of 
Nature's boundless gifts? When shall the curse of sheer 
commercialism, of action and enterprise only for private gain, 
be lifted? Here alone is a region where an empire of con- 
tented people might dwell, inhabited by wild beasts alone. 
But pardon this digression, kind reader. 

The natural resources of Peru are varied and abundant, 
and in many branches of industrial activity British capital 
can be profitably employed. At present British commerce 
with Peru greatly exceeds that of any other nation, and 
British interests control the principal railways of the country, 
whilst, as before stated, there is a good deal of British capital 
invested in sugar and cotton production. American and 
German activity and enterprise are, however, growing 
rapidly. In mining, British enterprise is not favourably 
marked so far. Some of the mining enterprises of British 
origin have not done well, but the fault has been in mis- 
management rather than in the mines themselves. Indeed, 
in some cases, these have been established under questionable 
native and foreign auspices, and have suffered in conse- 
quence, such as the gold mines near Chimbote; the Recuay 
copper mines, and others. However, there can be no doubt 
that when the present lack of mining enterprise in London 
passes, attention will be turned to Peru and its stores of 
gold, silver, copper, and coal ; and capital draw n to invest- 
ment there. 

Directly affecting the resources of a country such as Peru, 
is the character of its inhabitants. The Peruvians, as a 
whole, are a hospitable and well-meaning people, w'ith a 
cultured upper class. Since the loss of their nitrate wealth, 
they have shown some disposition towards taking off their 
coats, and going to work to develop their country, and, 
indeed, the great territory of Peru's mountain and forest 
region is of far greater value than the nitrate wealth of Tara- 
paca, whose life can be measured now by decades. The 
Peruvian upper class is a Spanish-speaking white and mixed 
race, but fond of ease ; and the women are attractive and 
vivacious. Lima has always been a centre of Spanish- 
American civilization and culture inherited from the time of 
the viceroys. In their business methods the Peruvians as 



304 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

individuals liave yet a good deal to learn, their greatest 
failing being the lack of rigid observance of word and bond ; 
but they are a young nation with their future before them. 
More workers are the country's principal need, and more 
ideas from the outside. The small population of three million 
souls — of which 50 per cent, are Cholos and Indians — inhabit- 
ing an area of seven hundred thousand square miles, scarcely 
increases, and immigration at present is nil, notwithstand- 
ing the possibilities for immigrants. Remote from Europe, 
Peru is one of those countries which may be expected to 
benefit by the Panama Canal, whenever that great work may 
be completed. The political and financial conditions of the 
country are good at present; the budget yields a surplus, and 
the best governing elements of the country are controlling 
the affairs of State, with the result that no serious revolution 
has occurred for fourteen years. 

I have said that the Peruvians' business methods are 
susceptible of improvement, and this will be strongly 
impressed upon the foreigner. A Peruvian too often enters 
into a contract with some mental reservation ; he has largely 
developed that Spanish trait which willingly makes excellent 
laws, whilst reserving the right to break them individually ! 
On several occasions I have entered into agreements with 
Peruvians, mainly upon the subject of mines, and have 
incurred much expense "in time and money to carry out my 
part, only to find that by tricks and bombastic methods the 
other party has escaped from his obligations in order to 
enjoy the whole profit of the negotiations for himself ! The 
Peruvian in some cases have inherited or acquired a singular 
Jesuitical character. Courteous and hospitable in social life, 
in business the spirit of fair-dealing becomes one of expedi- 
ency. At present as a nation they are somewhat pusillani- 
mous; yet the striving to remedy their defects is slow, both as 
individuals and as a nation. The terrible defeat and punish- 
ment they received from the Chileans in the bloody "War of 
the Pacific" in 1880 was such as the country has not entirely 
recovered from ; yet the quarrel over Tacna and Arica has 
not yet been settled, and new affronts have recently been 
exchanged between Chile and Peru, resulting in the with- 
drawal of ministers and consuls, and almost in the menace 




ij 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 305 

of further war. Whilst the student of these matters cannot 
refrain from sympathizing with the Peruvians on the bitter 
losses and sacrifices which she incurred, and the injustice 
which was dealt out to her, the calamity was partly the result 
of the Peruvian character, which, arrogant, yet pusillanimous, 
fails to absorb the philosophy which time and circumstance 
ought to bring to every nation and every individual. 
Political unrest is much less serious than formerly, but it 
still breaks out at times, and in July 1909 my friend in Lima, 
the Peruvian attorney-general, wrote me that the person of 
the President had just been seized by a body of revolution- 
aries, clapped into prison, but rescued two hours afterwards 
by the army, which had remained loyal ; my friend's letter 
was edged with black : his brother, who had been passing 
along the street, having been shot down by accident in a 
fusillade ! 

Yet there is much of attraction in the capitals and towns 
of Peru, and much that is pleasing in Peruvian civilization. 
As regards the history of the Church and the viceroys, and 
the architecture of the cities, the plazas, the cathedrals, the 
public institutions, and the domestic life of the people, we 
have similar conditions such as obtain in Mexico. Lima — ■ 
the "City of the Kings," as Pizarro named it — -was, and 
indeed is, a centre of Spanish-American civilization, and 
remains a stronghold of Roman Catholicism, for the cult of 
other religions is still illegal though tolerated. The other 
cities of Peru, such as Trujillo, Arequipa, and the numerous 
state capitals — generally situated at high elevations in the 
Andine regions, and more or less remote from the coast, 
have each their distinctive life, charged strongly with the 
colour of the bygone Inca regime, and the presence of the 
population of the Quechua Indians. 

The good climate which Lima enjoys — it is perhaps too 
equable for the rigorous northerner — together with its easy 
access to pretty suburban watering-places on the coast, render 
it an attractive city to live in ; and the foreigner encounters 
a cultured upper class of people, fond of art, literature and 
science. There are some buildings of historic importance, 
and the general aspect of the streets and characteristic 
Hispanic architecture — chapters in stone from mediaeval 

X 



306 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Spain— are restful and pleasing. Strange that these old- 
world places, with their dreamy air, where sweet oval faces 
and dark eyes look forth from balconies, and the sound 
of the Angelus is heard, should, on sudden occasion, be the 
scene of firing and bloodshed, as this or that attack of revolu- 
tionary fever comes to its crisis ! With all their faults, such 
cities as Lima, and its people, remain pleasingly upon the 
traveller's mind; and Heaven forbid that they should ever 
be metamorphosed into the type of blatant manufacturing 
community of Anglo-America, where the factory chimney 
and the golden calf are the most conspicuous objects ! 

Lima is progressing, as regards its public buildings, some- 
what, or at least as to its hotels. I recollect during one of 
my first visits there — (it was only five years ago) — one of 
the principal hotels of the city did not contain a bath ! I 
arrived one evening weary and dusty, having come down 
from weeks of mule-back journeying in the interior, and 
seeking the hotel-office requested to have a hot bath. The 
hotel was administered by some French ladies, and it was 
with some diffidence that I broached the subject, which 
seemed to cause the manageress some perplexity ; for she called 
another of the ladies and entered into consultation with her. 
"You would like a hot bath ? " the other lady said; to which 
I replied that if it were not inconvenient I should like one 
very much. She turned again to her colleague, and after a 
moment they sent for the third lady, and all three discussed 
the matter. This was rather embarrassing. However, after 
a space they turned to me with the assurance that the bath 
was quite possible, and that it would be ready in half-an- 
hour. So I went up to my rooms to wait, somewhat 
impatiently, for I was in a hurry to dress for dinner at 
H.B.M.'s minister's house — in accordance with his invitation 
to a "Bridge Party" (I had accepted with the proviso that 
I did not play bridge, however !), My rooms in the hotel 
were number thirty-three; I recollect the fact because the 
attendant who unlocked the door said, "Numero treinta y 
tres, senor, the same as the age of Jesucristo ! " — an allusion 
which, I confess, caused me a momentary shock at what, 
however, was not meant for levity on his part. 

Can you imagine, good reader, how that bath was filled? 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 307 

I was duly called and conducted to a dark cupboard under 
some stair, containing, it is true, an ancient-looking bath ; 
and simultaneously a number of kitchen-maids and one or 
two small boys from the lower (hotel) regions arrived, each 
bearing a utensil — saucepan or kettle — of hot water, which 
they emptied into the bath, going and coming until there 
was at least six inches of water in it, whilst the lady- 
proprietress stood by directing the operations ! 

Now, however, Lima has a new first-class hotel, where the 
traveller may obtain almost anything in the way of food or 
convenience which he might enjoy in London or Paris. 
The view from the old hotel was interesting, whatever the 
failings of the hostelry; and my room faced the plaza and 
the ancient massive cathedral, whose foundation-stone was 
laid by Pizarro. Earthquake shocks, so far, have left it 
unimpaired, save for a few cracks and — during my visit — 
the shifting of some of the stone figures of saints upon the 
parapet. One day a continued clashing of the cathedral 
bells woke me from a siesta; a jangling and banging which, 
as the bell tower was only a biscuit's toss away from my 
window, sounded deafening. What was the reason of it, 
I inquired; and came the answer in solemn tones from 
the attendant — the same who had shown me number thirty- 
three — "The Pope has died, seiior." It was so, and 
the bells were "doblando" for the passing hence of his 
Holiness. 

Life in the remote interior towns of the Peruvian Andes 
has its own peculiar colour. To some it would appear doubt- 
less monotonous, triste, and almost hopeless. To the more 
thoughtful traveller, however, it is an interesting "study in 
grey " which contains some subtle charm which, kind reader, 
shall not escape our universalist eye and evolutionist judg- 
ment. Behold a great unkempt plaza, surrounded by the 
usual Spanish-American buildings; the cathedral or church, 
the municipal ofifices, the club (if any) and the houses of the 
most wealthy of the community with grille-covered windows 
and balconies, and wide entrance doorway opening on to the 
interior patio; that class of house-architecture which Spain 
has stamped upon half a world. Let us take our stand in 
this great square at early morning. The delicious cool air 

X 2 



308 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

from the mountains is a veritable tonic — we must recollect 
that we are ten or eleven thousand feet above sea-level here 
— and upon the near horizon arise such glorious snow-capped 
peaks, rising perhaps to twenty thousand feet above sea-level 
— peaks never heard of by the Switzerland-trotting tourist, 
hanging against the blue-grey sky in distant and inaccessible 
purity, luring us, like a cold and inaccessible virgin, to gaze 
regretfully upon them. Yet I should not necessarily say 
inaccessible, for I have ascended some of these snowy slopes 
where man never trod before. "The inhabitants of this 
town ought to be chaste and elevated," I wrote in an article 
which the editor of the little local Peruvian paper had begged 
me to contribute soon after my arrival in one of these interior 
towns. But unfortunately the environment of these people 
often seem to disprove the theory that surroundings exercise 
influence on mankind, for the people of the Peruvian sierra, 
whilst like all communities, they are a compound of good 
and bad, have some qualities which are exceedingly trying 
to those who do business with them, and the serious frauds 
which I have suffered myself have had the effect of causing 
me to see things through the spectacles of actuality and not 
of illusion, which is useful, if disagreeable. 

These interior towns, of which the plaza is the centre, 
generally stand upon some broad campina, or cultivated 
valley or plain, surrounded on all sides by an amphitheatre 
of mountains. Far away upon the slopes is a faint, white 
line, the mule-trail which I toilsomely descended on my way 
hither; the only means of communication for this population 
of, say, ten thousand souls, with the outside world; a steep 
and ill-formed road which zig-zags over those eternal rocks, 
scarcely improved for traffic since the first Indian took his 
way there after the Andes were upraised from chaos. An 
Anglo-American city would have built a railway, or at least 
a road for vehicles, half a century ago, but the Hispanic 
people love not such engineering efforts, and, moreover, they 
are poor. It is still early, six o'clock, say, and since dark 
the Indian women and men, red-blanketed and white-hatted, 
with bare feet, or possibly with sandals if their resources 
permit the expense of footgear, have been sitting on the 
cathedral terraces with burro-loads of fodder, great mountains 




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PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 309 

of green alfalfa for sale, principally for the horses of the 
battalion of cavalry, which is quartered in the place. 

These picturesque Cholos and Indians, men and women, 
come in in their thousands from the surrounding country to 
buy, sell, drink, receive benedictions from the ciira, and 
form a community of great interest and colour to the observer. 
As explained elsewhere, the Indians are the Quechuas, the 
same people who constituted the population of the country 
under the Incas; as also the Aymaras, in certain parts of 
the country and of Bolivia. The Cholos are these same 
Indian stock with some small strain of Spanish blood, not 
enough to warrant being called Mestizos, however, for these 
latter are of pronounced semi-Spanish type, and form the bulk 
of the civilized part of the population. Of excellent national 
material for population and workers are these Cholos and 
Cholo-Indians, and indeed they are the only people who 
can ever carry on manual labour of mining and agriculture 
in the rarefied air of these high plateaux. The Chinaman 
and the negro — Heaven be praised ! — can never take their 
place, for nature has set the barrier of altitude to their 
environment, preserving the soil for the use of the people 
who have done her the simple homage of being born there ! 
The women are exceedingly prolific in child-bearing, and 
were not the infant mortality so terribly heavy, due to their 
poverty and the insanitary conditions in which they live, the 
population of the Peruvian sierra would increase instead of 
remaining stationary, as it appears to be doing. You will 
never see a native woman of these regions without a baby 
at her back, slung in a shawl, and one or two at her side. 
Nor shall I ever forget a spectacle I saw in this same plaza 
where we are standing, good reader, at the moment. Bear 
with me whilst I recount it. 

An order had been received for the battalion of soldiery 
to leave the place for some other district, and they drew 
up in the great square in marching order. What was that 
faint but continuous sound of mourning and weeping which 
came from among the mass of Cholas and Indians con- 
gregated on the cathedral terrace to watch the soldiers' 
departure ? It was the sound of women weeping, women 
who "would not be comforted," weeping, however, not for 



310 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

their children, but for their departing "husbands": the 
temporary husbands of two years' partnership. For the 
militares are going, and the poor women who have lived 
with them, cooked for them, rendered them every duty which 
primitive woman may render, are to be left abandoned now; 
and not only they but the one or two children each w^hich 
they have borne to the soldiers ! The prefect is standing 
by me (the prefect, I must explain, in Peru, is equivalent 
to the state governor, the highest civil position) and is taking 
in the scene with characteristic comments. "Tanta Chola 
llorando" — "such a lot of Indian-weeping" — he exclaims to 
me; adding, "You see, the soldiers have been here nearly 
two years; time for nearly two children apiece," and he 
digs me in the ribs facetiously. "Why don't they take the 
women with them?" I reply: "it seems heartless to leave 
them." He says the ofificial order is that no women are to 
accompany the troop. And how could they, indeed ? Five 
days of toilsome march over mountain and desert intervene 
between us and the coast, where the battalion is to take 
steamer for the capital. Could these poor creatures and 
their tender progeny struggle in the soldiers' wake? They 
would die on the road. "What will you do with them?" 
I ask the prefect, and that worthy shrugs his shoulders. 
After a minute or so he says, "There will be another troop 
here before long, and the women will be busy again ! " 

And now from out of the great doorway on the plaza of 
the soldiers' head-quarters, heralded by a trumpet-call, comes 
the colonel and his officers, and the troop of cavalry lines 
up in marching order to depart. Indian women, with babies 
at their breasts, rendered bold by the menace of abandoned 
motherhood, press in among the horses' legs to seek, for a 
last good-bye or last protest, the author of the baby's being. 
They are rudely repulsed and thrust away by order of the 
officers. The prefect is looking on unmoved — it is no new 
scene to him, nor to the other residents of the place standing 
around. Personally, I turn aside; for the life of me I cannot 
restrain a moment's emotion. Then the bugle sounds again ; 
the troop enfilades around the plaza with a great clattering 
of hoofs, which drowns the sound of weeping; it takes its 
way towards the dusty trail leading to the world beyond; 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 311 

a brief space and the clatter and dust of its departure has 
died away in the distance. "Vamos," says the prefect, turn- 
ing to me and his other companions, "let us go and have 
a copita,'" and we pass through the crowd of sobbing Cholas, 
comforting each other, as the poor always do. 

Not only the women have suffered by the troops' depar- 
ture. The shopkeepers are loud in their complaints of 
unpaid officers' bills ; the hotel-keeper says he is ruined, as 
he has boarded and fed several captains and lieutenants who 
have drunk his wines and eaten his dinners without paying. 
But when he approached the colonel, that worthy replied 
with the Spanish equivalent of seeking his payment with 
his Satanic majesty, as he had something else to do besides 
bothering about his officers' bills. However, a round-robin 
was drawn up by the shopkeepers and innkeepers — they 
showed it to me — and sent to Lima, the seat of the "Supreme 
Government," and I believe a percentage of the claims was 
recovered afterwards. I am reminded of "Don Caesar de 
Bazan " and his "unpaid tailor's bill" — 

" All the world over ; all the world over, 
To love, to drink, to fight I delight." 

My first meeting with the prefect had been somewhat 
singular. On arriving in the place I had brought letters of 
introduction to some of the principal people — who had given 
a dinner in my honour — but not to him. Walking in the 
plaza one morning I met a middle-aged individual of marked 
Mestizo strain, soldierly-looking but dressed in mufti, who 
to my surprise, as I did not know him, addressed me, inviting 
me to take a copita — that inevitable Spanish-American 
invitation. "Ah," he said, in Spanish, of course, "you Eng- 
lishmen are always surprised if a stranger speaks to you, 
but never mind, I am the prefect." So it was that we became 
acquainted, and I must explain the advent of an English 
engineer and explorer in those remote communities is a 
matter of much interest to the inhabitants. The prefect 
never afterwards failed to rally me on British reserve, and 
he often used to range himself at my side at "church parade " 
on Sunday, that is to say at the time when the ladies, young 
and old, emerge from the temple at the conclusion of mass. 



312 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

This is a species of review indulged in severally by the male 
part of the community, who love to catch a glance from 
bright eyes shot coyly or meaningly from beneath the 
mantilla. As for the prefect, he knew the glances would be 
more frequent in the neighbourhood of the young foreigner ! 
I forgot to say, concerning the departure of the battalion, 
that the colonel, at least, had not left his temporary partner 
behind, for a special convoy was told off to take the lady 
to the coast, and the fact that she was a married woman 
did not seem to weigh greatly in the balance ! I am not 
giving these details of Andine life, good reader, from the 
desire of serving-up chronique scandaleuse, but simply to 
show its character in these communities ; and it is easily 
gathered that the relations between the sexes are much 
looser than in European communities. The Spanish- 
American man does not regard woman with the same respect 
that the Anglo-American or the Briton shows towards her. 
The Spaniards of conquistadorial and viceregal days ran riot 
among the unprotesting native women, as was indeed scarcely 
more than natural, and the same spirit remains to-day. The 
"unprotected female" of these communities need, indeed, 
have a care of herself — 

" The maid too heedless straying, 
As one we (Pedro's daughter) know, 
Home returns full sad and slow ; 
What can have made her so ? " 

It is said sometimes that the Indian women do not like 
the foreigner, but I must say I have found women, even 
among the Cholas and Indians of Peru, more amenable to 
friendship and hospitality than men. I have, as a traveller 
and speaking in general terms, always laid it down as an 
axiom that wherever I saw a petticoat there I M-as sure of 
a welcome. I have found this axiom to hold good in Canada, 
California, Mexico, Peru and Chile — a sufficiently wide range 
of territory ! Camping upon a remote plateau in the Andine 
highlands I wandered one day up the valley whilst my men 
prepared the evening meal, and suddenly ran into a small 
hamlet of natives. They did not seem at all perturbed by 
the advent of an Englishman in riding-dress among them, 
although probably they had never, or rarely, beheld a 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 313 

foreigner— and "foreigners" include the upper class of their 
own country — before. I leant over the' fence which sur- 
rounded a kind of corral of one of the houses, where a group 
of women were cooking in earthen pots, and addressed them 
in Spanish. To this they replied, as is customary among 
them, in their native Quechua. Indeed, it was probable that 
they did not understand Spanish, for when I said some- 
thing complimentary to one of the pretty Indian girls she 
replied with a smile and a look at her companion and 
immediately handed out to me an earthenware bowl full of 
cooked frijoles or beans, from the pot. Being both hungry 
and not desirous of slighting them, I devoured the beans 
and thanked her, remarking that I thought her very hospit- 
able. Her reply to this was a bowlful of cooked maize, part 
of which I attacked, and when at last I said good-bye, thank- 
ing them in Spanish for their hospitality and otherwise 
complimenting them, out came a pot of potatoes, which I 
was obliged to decline ! However, I sent them from my 
camp a present of a tin of sardines and some Manila 
cigarettes. Not in a frivolous spirit do I record this. 

One of the dominating factors in Peruvian life is the cura 
and the Church. The priest in Spanish-America may be 
considered a man of privileged calling. That is to sav, that 
being a priest his welfare and happiness are secured for life. 
He may not feed his flock, but his flock will always feed 
him: men will bring him tithes, women will yield themselves 
up to his service and requirements, of whatever nature ! 
In a remote part of the Andes a serrano at whose house I 
was lodging recited me the following recipe for happiness — 

" Un dia feliz — afeitese : 
Una semana feliz — matas un puerco ; 
Un afio feliz — c^sate ; 
Una vida feliz — hazte cura ! " 

which I may translate as — 

" For a happy day — have a shave ; 
For a happy week — kill a pig ; 
For a happy year — marry ; 
For a happy life — de a priest!'''' 

To fully appreciate this it must be recollected that in such 
regions shaving is generally performed on high-days and 



314 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

holidays; the kilHng of a pig is an event of some import- 
ance, and provides — especially among the Spanish peoples — 
matters of much and lasting satisfaction for the table; 
marrying is an occasion for great rejoicing and even licence, 
whilst the reference to holy orders sets forth the stimum 
bonuni of existence ! 

But the cura does not always work his will. In one remote 
village of the Andes where I stayed for a few days the 
gobernador — the petty authority of the place — in showing 
me the "sights" took me to a rude bridge over the stream. 
"This bridge," he said, "has a history. Ten years ago 
several of the people took the cura and hanged him from 
the balustrade." The cause of this very rare example of a 
popular execution (for lynch law is practically unknown in 
Spanish-America) was, I learned, due to the wrongful 
behaviour of the cura with the wife of one of the citizens 
of the place. The priests of the Andine countries, and indeed 
of Spanish-America generally, have a reputation for 
immorality which it is impossible to controvert. Celibacy 
(except in the rarest cases) is unknown among them. It 
would be too much for the foreigner to judge or condemn 
them entirely on this score, and personally I prefer to recollect 
the many instances of hospitality they have shown me. I 
have often arrived with my men at a place where I knew 
absolutely no one, and have at once been received in the 
house of the village cura. 

Evening falls upon the plaza of our Andine town. It is 
six o'clock, and the sun is setting. There is no sunset gun, 
but listen to the notes of the bugle, for the guard has turned 
out from the guard-house into the plaza in front of the 
municipal palace to salute the flag, as it is the moment of 
its lowering. Out rushes the prefect as the notes of the 
music reach him, and he stands bareheaded regarding the 
flagstaff and the banner of Peru which floats above the 
parapet. Hats off all ! the notes of the national anthem ring 
out and are echoed among the hills; a chorus of mongrel 
dogs, which have collected near the soldiery in the plaza, 
gives mournful tongue in accompaniment to the bugler; the 
sun goes down behind the hills and a chill breeze arises. 
Down flutters the flag on its halyards — the day is done. 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 315 

As before stated, in journeying from one part of Peru to 
another it is inevitable to cross the Andes, one or several 
of the paralleling Cordilleras, at high elevation : the passes 
in some cases reaching sixteen and seventeen thousand feet 
above sea-level. The rarefied air and the constant storms 
encountered upon these high summits are very trying, 
although the grandeur of the environment at times com- 
pensates for the difficulties and even sufferings of the trail. 
I have crossed the Andine summits many times (once on 
foot over the snow-cap, where passage had never been made 
before by a white man), and have experienced all the forces 
of nature, in rain, snow, hail, wind and cold, which it would 
be possible to concentrate upon one spot ! 

Having completed my work in the region of the Maraiion, 
I prepared to return to the coast. I had explored a snowy 
pass over the main range of the Andes at the request of the 
authorities of one of the departments of that part of Peru, 
and proposed to return by crossing the cordillera over the 
high pass which forms the principal means of communica- 
tion there. The gobernador — the petty official of the Indian 
village at whose house I had stayed — was very anxious to 
oblige his guest in the matter of obtaining horses, notwith- 
standing his regret, as he put it, at losing "a distinguished 
traveller from the outside world, who had rendered such a 
service to the region," for my exploration had opened up 
the possibility of a long-desired mule-road over the summit, 
but which had never been attempted "until," as the alcalde 
of the village, another petty official, said, "the way had been 
shown by a son of energetic Albion." Horses were what 
I wanted now, and both officials undertook to obtain them. 

But it is one thing to promise and another to obtain horses 
and mules in the Peruvian sierra villages. Not that they 
do not exist, but their Mestizo, or Indian, owners are loath 
to hire — their beasts have too often been commandeered, 
never to be seen again ! Within two days, however, four 
sorry brutes — one less sorry than the others, and destined 
for myself — were brought in by the strenuous commands 
of the authorities. "Now, senor," those worthies, the 
gobernador and the alcalde, said, "you will be able to make 
a start early to-morrow." But I think I must have shown 



316 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

no particular signs of enthusiasm during my inspection of 
the decrepit brutes. Long experience in Spanish-America 
had rendered me cautious. "Tell me, gobernador," I said, 
perhaps with a note of sarcasm, "do you really think these 
animals will cross the cordillera ? " He replied in such a 
way as confirmed my own doubts, but we agreed that a good 
day's feeding with plentiful alfalfa might render it possible. 

in these high regions of Peru the diet of horses is often 
got down to an irreducible minimum ; alfalfa or other fodder 
is scarce, and above a certain elevation, indeed, does not grow 
at all; whilst the unenterprising native often stints his beast 
from parsimony or laziness. The horse is not a native of 
the New World, and in many regions he has been introduced 
there to suffer ! These particular animals, however, were 
not destined to take me upon my journey, for on going 
outside early next morning I found the gobernador thrash- 
ing the cJiolo who had had charge of them. "He slept, the 
rascal," the gobernador explained as I interposed, "and the 
animals have been taken away in the night ! " This did not 
surprise me — it was not a new experience of these forced 
loans of animals made by order of the authorities. Nor did 
I consider the loss irremediable, and I said so; and the 
gobernador promised other beasts for the "Maiiana." "In 
any case, seiior," he said, "it is better to wait a day or so," 
indicating the distant cordillera. I cast my eyes towards the 
beautiful snow-covered Andes, over whose summit I had so 
direfully struggled but a short time before in my explora- 
tion, and notwithstanding the rosy tinge of the rising sun 
upon the gleaming ice-bound peaks it was evident that a 
severe snowstorm was raging there. However, on the 
following day two horses and two mules w'ere obtained and 
liberally treated to alfalfa, and guarded at night with the 
utmost vigilance — for, to tell the truth, it was another forced 
loan. The steed destined for myself was large but decrepit, 
with the usual frightful mass of sores on his back, caused by 
bad saddles and poverty of blood due to ill-nourishment. 
The animals for my three Peruvian assistants, who had 
accompanied me, were of varying — very varying — character- 
istics, ranging from a wicked-looking black mule to a small 
beast which no doubt was of equine race, but which looked 



PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 317 

more like a rat than a horse! 1 did, in fact, christen it "El 
Raton," on the spot, much to the gobernador's amusement; 
and I reserved the wicked-looking mule for myself; it had 
stamina, at any rate. 

We started, but late, due to the difficulties of obtaining 
saddles for my assistants; for as to my own I never went 
anywhere without it, a habit the result of long and bitter 
experience. It was imprudent to start so late, for to cross the 
Cordillera the wise traveller sets out at daybreak, as after 
the sun passes the meridian the storms are generally let 
loose in ihe Andes. On the other hand I preferred not to 
risk the loss of the horses by remaining another night, so, 
having partaken of a last copita with the gobernador and 
his wife and daughter, and thanked them for their hospi- 
tality and distributed some largesse among his Indian 
dependents, I gave the order, and we were soon clear of 
the village, with its rows of thatched adobe huts, and ascend- 
ing the foothills among the ruins of the early occupiers of 
the land — the Gentiles, as the Peruvians of to-day term the 
by-gone people. Indeed, it is very evident to the traveller 
that those people did live as clans or Gentiles, with clusters 
of ruined dwellings and castles in their midst upon inac- 
cessible hill slopes. 

The impressions of that journey, kind reader, will, I think, 
remain with me until I make the final departure over this 
earthly range. My own mule breasted the cordillera 
gallantly, but the animals ridden by my assistants lagged 
woefully behind; and night, I saw, would soon be upon us, 
with its storms and darkness. Far ahead of my companions 
I reined up my mule on a high, rocky counterfort to wait 
for them. Away to the east the shadow of the Andes was 
creeping across the country, and range after range of hills, 
intersected by profound valleys, stretched away towards the 
horizon, terminating in the limitless forests of the Amazon 
region which stretch for thousands of miles beyond the 
Maraiion. In the opposite direction arose the slopes of the 
Andes, their summits, crowned with perpetual snow, rising 
in culminating points of ethereal-looking peaks, bathed by 
the passing roseate flush of the setting sun. Silent, solitary, 
majestic, they rose above me; and as I gazed upon them and 



318 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

to that far horizon 1 felt for a space no care for the morrow, 
and something of that feeling of communion with nature 
which the traveller experiences at times in certain situations, 
came upon me. Half-an-hour I stood there halting, watching. 

But there was nothing ethereal about the cold snow- and 
rain-storm which presently wound with sudden fury from 
among those everlasting snow-crowned aisles and turrets : 
whose sudden burst brought down a part of the snow-cornice 
of a white facade rising a thousand feet above me, when, my 
companions having rejoined me, we breasted the appalling 
steeps which formed the "road" among this Andine archi- 
tecture. It was late, time for food; and under the lee of 
a rock we partook of the lunch which the gobernador had 
put up for us, which unfortunately proved to be neither 
appetizing nor abundant. However, he had privately put in 
my own alforjas, or saddle-bags, an excellent boiled ham, 
advising me to reserve it for my own use; but I cut off large 
chunks for the Peruvians and myself, returning the bone, 
with a remaining crust of bread, to the saddle-bags. In 
the snowy Andes, upon a night ride, even a ham-bone 
might be useful ! 

" What time shall we arrive ? " (our destination was a town 
on the further side of the cordillera) I asked my man, who 
knew the road; and "Quien sabe, seiior," was his reply, as 
he looked at the wretched horses. For hours we wound 
and zig-zagged up the slopes. Unceasingly the rain and 
snow beat upon us, blotting out the darkening landscape, 
rendering the trail invisible, and soaking my companions to 
the skin, for they were unprotected by indiarubber capes. 
Indeed, I did not fare much better myself, for the wind and 
rain blew up from underneath us, rather than from above : 
although the boa of vicuiia fur which I used for such expedi- 
tions, wound round my neck and face, kept off the benumbing 
cold and prevented the wretched soroche, or headache and 
sickness, which sometimes attacks the traveller in these 
inclement regions, due to the rarefied air. Hour after hour, 
league after league, we plodded on in silence, feeling our 
way more by the sagacity of our horses than by our own 
eyesight, for night had fallen now and there was but the 
faintest gleam from the snow-cap upon which we had entered. 



PERU, THE EAND OF THE INCAS 319 

I was in the antarctic regions, only ten degrees south of the 
equator! Wet, benumbed, cramped, hungry— it was the 
retreat from Moscow; Hannibal and the Alps, or the march 
of Boliva or San Martin all rolled into one! But the 
traveller who has elected to cross the Andes on a winter 
night has only himself to blame, and I supported the situa- 
tion with philosophy. Yet I longed for the summit, and 
the easier riding downwards, for the up-hill climb is most 
fatiguing at such appalling angles, w'ith benumbed hand 
clutching the animal's mane to keep the saddle from slipping 
back. For my breast-strap had been stolen — some part of 
your horse's gear ahyays is stolen in the Peruvian sierra. 
One of the Peruvians was cursing the journey bitterly to his 
companions. 

But at last a ray of comfort came upon us. Casting my 
eyes upwards from a turn of the precipitous road, I suddenly 
observed a wooden cross silhouetted against the fitful gleam 
of the occasional moon which looked out from tearing black 
clouds. No sight could have been more welcome. I knew 
it was the summit; for the devout Peruvian-Indian alw'ays 
places a cross at the highest point of a trail over a moun- 
tain range. 

"La cumbre ! " (the summit), I called to my followers, 
struggling up the precipitous path on their soroche-stricken 
and failing horses, and their satisfaction w'as as great as 
mine. A little further on, my man said, there was a chosa, 
or Indian shepherd's hut (for these people feed their flocks 
right up to the snow-line), which might afford us shelter 
enough to make a cup of coffee. Up, up, therefore. 

The summits of the Peruvian Andes of this region are 
of much topographical interest. They form the divortia 
aquarmn of the South American continent. The snow and 
rain which had poured oflf my riding-cape in streams as I 
ascended, and the rills I had crossed, were to find their 
way to the giant Amazon, and so to the Atlantic, three 
thousand miles away; the rains and snowflakes upon which 
we were entering now had a destination very far removed, 
for their flow was to the Pacific Ocean. Thus I was upon 
the water-parting of the continent, facing towards the Great 
Pacific Coast. 



320 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

I drew rein at the foot of the cross. Then I looked at my 
watch by the light of a match — it was twelve o'clock mid- 
night ! I looked at my aneroid barometer — it marked fifteen 
thousand feet above the level of the sea. I was much higher 
than the summit of Mont Blanc. All around was a snowy 
world of perpetual ice — the roof of these "glimpses of the 
moon," which luminary came out brilliantly for a space and 
lighted up the savage landscape, flinging strange shadows 
from the snow-cornices of peaks upon their white fa9ades and 
terraces, and carrying the eye to where, far, far away, the 
horizon was lost in the drifting wrack of snow and sky. 

Lost in contemplation of the scene I rode on, and after a 
space was interrupted by the voice of one of my assistants. 
"Seiior," he said, "the choza is no longer there"; and 
gazing disappointedly down upon a plateau far below, where 
he said it had formerly stood, we observed nothing but bare 
grass and snow. A black shadow came over the face of the 
moon, and the pelting rain and snow once more closed in 
upon us. We had already been twelve hours in the saddle. 
The Peruvians had sustained their energies with draughts 
at their bottle of aguadiente, or native brandy, and I did 
not disdain a mouthful myself. Eight hours at least lay 
between us and the nearest village— eight hours more of snow 
and benumbing cold, cramped and weary. I was soaked to 
the skin ; hunger assailed me, and as I rode along I savagely 
attacked the ham-bone with my teeth. When for a space 
the snow ceased falling I descended from the saddle and 
jogged along for miles on foot, leading my mule by the 
riata, or halter, so in this way restoring the circulation to 
my cramped limbs; and being a good pedestrian I soon 
outdistanced my companions. Again I mounted; again the 
sky grew black, the trail disappeared, and the roaring of a 
mountain torrent somewhere — perhaps a thousand feet below 
— fell on my ears. I drew rein suddenly, for I found I was 
upon the verge of empty space. The mule snorted with 
fear, and planted his hoofs resolutely upon the rock; and 
well was it we both acted so, for we had gone off the trail 
and were poised on the edge of a frightful precipice, as I 
observed a moment later when the moon came out. Turning 
cautiously I gave the mule the rein, and with native sagacity 



'nw^^msmm^ 





ir^ 






Sl;^-,-- 










PERU, THE LAND OF THE INCAS 321 

he found the trail again, and I waited for the Peruvians. 
Two of their animals had failed, and they were walking — a 
method of advance which the Spanish-American abhors. At 
least I had the advantage of being at home equally in the 
saddle or on foot, although I denied myself the motive- 
power of the brandy flask ! 

At last a faint flush appeared in the east as we reached 
the lowlands — the old sun-god of the Incas had not forgotten 
his snowy world: "the day-spring from on high had visited 
us." Before us was a village, and never have I beheld the 
primitive habitations of man with such satisfaction as then. 
In the rural official's house we found shelter and fodder and 
food, and my name was known there (as indeed it was in 
many parts of Peru, from my travels and articles in the 
Lima papers). Having given directions for the care of the 
horses and my own valiant mule, I threw myself upon my 
rugs and horse-cloths, with my saddle for a pillow, and weary 
for the moment of the Andes and of the world I was soon 
in the land of dreams. 



XV 

CHILE : THE LAND OF THE ENGLISH OF SOUTH AMERICA 

Tarapaca — a name fraught with meaning and history on 
this vast southward-stretching Httoral; these arid, surf-beat 
reaches of the Great Pacific Coast. I can never pass the 
barren shores of Tarapaca and Antofagasta without conjur- 
ing up the recollection of Grau and Prat : the heroes of the 
Huascar and the Esjneralda, who, in their death-grappling 
off this coast, found a sailor's grave and lie fathoms deep 
below the Pacific rollers. Who were Prat and Grau ? you 
will possibly ask, kind reader. Their names are laurel- 
crowned in memory on this coast, and will never fade from 
the minds of their Chilean and Peruvian countrymen. 

The story of the Huascar is of w-arning value to all nations 
whose safety depends upon sea-power, as did the Peruvian 
of last century, and as does the Chilean to-day — (to say 
nothing of Great Britain !).i The naval fight between the 
Hiiascar, the renowned Peruvian ironclad, and her Chilean 
antagonist during the Pacific War in 1879, was the first 
clash of armoured vessels which had ever taken place, and 
was of interest to all the maritime nations of the world. Off 
these barren coasts of Tarapaca and Antofagasta Admiral 
Grau of the Huascar kept the whole Chilean army at bay 
for months, until the Chileans put their own powerful iron- 
clads in order and hunted the brave and persistent Peruvian 
unit down to the death. When the Huascar was captured 
Peru, bereft of sea-power, was at the mercy of her antagonist, 
and the terrible tale of humiliation and bloodshed which 
her own acts and the avarice of Chile combined brought upon 
her form the most bloody and terrible pages in the whole 
history of the Great Pacific Coast. 

Had Peru possessed a single first-class ironclad even, the 
issue of the war might have been very different. As it was, 
the Chileans, who had kept up their navy, invaded Peru, cap- 

^ See my Peru. 
322 



CHILE 323 

tured Lima, the capital, occupying it for three years, during 
which time the whole country groaned under their oppression. 
To secure their liberty again, the Peruvians were forced to 
hand over, as indemnity, the province of Tarapaca, and its 
enormous wealth in nitrate, the greatest indemnity ever paid 
by any nation, as well as temporarily to lose control of Tacna 
and Arica; and only during the last decade has Peru begun 
to recover from the effects of the disaster, and to take her 
place among the progressive nations of South America. 

The provinces of Tacna and Arica are held in pledge at 
present and jointly administered by the two nations, and 
whilst in justice they ought now to be returned to Peru, as 
soon as the arrangements connected with their holding are 
carried out, it is doubtful if Chile ever intends to let them 
go. Even during the present year fresh difficulties have 
arisen, fresh causes of embitterment between these two 
peoples — neighbours on the Great Pacific Coast— difficulties 
which at any time might disturb the South American peace 
by culminating in war. 

The Republic of Chile, the brave and warlike country 
whose people have been styled the "English of South 
America," is a long, narrow strip of territory lying between 
the Andes and the sea : so long and so narrow that one 
writer on South America has said facetiously, that on the 
map the country was "two thousand miles long and two 
inches wide ! " Actually, excluding the province of Tacna, 
which is debatable ground, the general length of the coast- 
line of Chile is more than 2,600 miles; extending approxi- 
mately from latitude 19" to latitude 56° S. — an enormous 
stretch of territory terminating in the Fuegian archipelago, 
down to Cape Horn. At this shattered end of the continent 
we reach, therefore, the southern terminus of our Great 
Pacific Coast, whose northern point we visited at Behring 
Straits, nearly twelve thousand miles away. We shall also 
observe that the last thousand miles of the coast of this 
continent is, like the shores of the extremity of the northern 
continent, broken and irregular, consisting of submerged 
mountain ranges, fiords, natural canals and islands, as in 
British Columbia and Alaska. Here, also, great glaciers 
come down to the sea, and the sphere of civilization ends in 

Y 2 



324 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

a world of snow and ice, and an ambient of storms and 
elemental strife, fit termination to the antarctic-pointing 
Horn. Here, indeed, nature's forces, in the uplifting of the 
giant Cordilleras which we have followed, seem to have reached 
their end, showing their lowered and jagged terminus. 

Chile, structurally, consists in some part (from the 28th 
parallel southwards for four hundred miles) of a long central 
valley fifteen to thirty miles wide. This is bounded on the 
east by the snow-covered range of the main chain of the 
Andes, and on the west by the coast range — a range much 
older geologically than its mighty neighbour of cretaceous 
or tertiary times — the great cordillera of South America 
generally. The highest summit of the Chilean Andes is 
Aconcagua, rising to 23,080 feet above sea-level — probably 
the highest summit in the New World, and first ascended 
in 1897. Several other peaks pass the twenty thousand feet 
elevation, the Andes diminishing greatly in height as the 
southern extremity is approached. The coast range is con- 
tinued interruptedly by the Chiloe and other islands, and 
the whole region has ever been, since its formation up to 
the appalling earthquakes of 1906, subject to earth-move- 
ments, which have greatly changed its configuration. The 
forces of Nature are still at work, fashioning the terminus 
of the Andes. 

North of the region of this central valley the Andes recedes 
much further from the coast, as we have observed in Peru, 
and the northern part of Chile consists of the great arid 
deserts, the Saharas of Atacama, Antofagasta and Tarapaca. 
These deserts, however, whilst as regards vegetation they 
form the most appalling wildernesses which exist in any 
part of the globe, are, nevertheless, exceedingly rich in matters 
of the inorganic world : the minerals of nitrate or Chile 
saltpetre, silver, borax and copper — matters which have pro- 
duced and are producing untold wealth for the commercial 
world. 

But here in 1879, among the sand-hills and scant oases 
of this region, a devilish, bloody struggle took place between 
three nations — Peru, Bolivia, Chile — for the possession of 
the nitrate fields, and blood was poured out on those sun- 
beat plains and in those sterile canons more freely than 










! . > ■,''.j'4.':.v,w;- 




CHILE 325 

water is to be encountered there. I ascended one day to a 
small plateau in the north of this region, and looking out 
over the burning plain I beheld the ground for acres in 
extent covered with bones, whitened and glistening in the 
sunshine. "What are those?" I asked of my native com- 
panion. "They are the bones of horses, senior," he replied. 
"And how came they here?" "They were the horses of a 
Peruvian battalion in the war, hamstrung or shot by order 
of a Peruvian general to prevent them falling into the hands 
of the enemy ! " 

The centre of this great region is the famous nitrate- 
shipping port of Iquique. You will hear about Iquique, 
good reader, long before you get there, as you journey 
down the long coast from Panama on the comfortable steamer 
of the British or Anglo-Chilean lines; and the main facts 
impressed upon you, both before and after your visit, will 
be first, the matter of nitrate export, and second, the matter 
of cocktail-consumption. 

At the British Club in that enterprising town, both matters 
(the latter possibly with exaggeration) are awarded the honour 
of the world's record ! It is commonly stated (again I trust 
with exaggeration) that ten to twelve cocktails before "break- 
fast " — which meal in Spanish-American countries is par- 
taken of at twelve o'clock — is about the average of the regular 
Iquique man. Of this club, however, let us speak no evil. 
We have enjoyed its hospitality ; it is an admirable institu- 
tion provided with all the leading magazines and periodicals 
of Britain by every mail, occupying the best position in 
the town, and upon its library walls hangs a portrait of 
Edward VII Rex. 

Another serious matter of which we shall hear much on this 
coast is that the distinctions between "mine " and "thine " are 
freely translated in terms of serious wharf robbery of imported 
goods. Boxes are freely rifled of their contents, and this 
constant stealing has at times reached a most serious pass. 
If you open a case of goods you will find a fair percentage 
of its contents lacking, stolen by stevedores or custom house 
porters. 

The nitrate industry of Tarapaca and adjoining regions 
is very important, and its history, commerce and extraction 



326 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

form the salient feature of the Pacific Coast in this part of 
America. The elaborate oficinas, as the nitrate-producing 
works are termed, are scattered all over the region near the 
coast, upon the various nitrate fields, whose names are 
household words to the student of the financial columns of 
London papers. Life at these oficinas upon the pampa, 
as the region of the nitrate deposits is collectively termed 
in the parlance of the coast, is stamped with a certain pluto- 
cratic British character. Great wealth has been made, and 
the evidences of it, and the upholding of certain marks of 
luxury and even refinement upon the edge of these appalling 
deserts is, of its kind, unique. Yet it is refreshing and 
stimulating after crossing, or sojourning in these deserts of 
the pampa to partake of the hospitality of the English 
oficina, and to don for dinner — invariable custom there — 
your evening dress. Far from relapsing into savagery in a 
savage environment, the Briton has created in Tarapaca and 
other places on that littoral centres of his own civilization, 
which he upholds to the credit of his race. But the British 
capitalist no longer holds unrivalled possession of the nitrate 
fields, for a marked feature of the country, of recent years, 
has been the German invasion, and German interests have 
acquired and are working various important nitrate oficinas. 
Iquique is a not unattractive town, built mainly of wood, 
and the amount of business transacted there reaches a value 
of many millions sterling in the year; the greater part of it 
being in British hands. More than twenty million pounds 
sterling of British capital is invested in the nitrate works, 
of which there are more than a hundred ; employing a con- 
siderable population, and forming the basis of the life of 
the town and ports along this part of the coast. The popula- 
tion of Iquique — Chilean and foreign — is more or less fifty 
thousand; and the city forms a Spanish-American centre of 
life in great contrast to older places, such as Arica or Lima, 
upon the Pacific Coast. It is naturally tinged by the foreign 
element. The city, notwithstanding the enormous amount 
drawn from nitrate export dues by the Chilean Government, 
amounts which reach several millions sterling per annum, 
does not, or did not until recently, pave its streets, which 
the continual watering with sea-water turn into surfaces of 



CHILE 327 

mud. Moreover, the interior of the country shows no 
evidence of this vast output of wealth, in the regime of the 
roads, bridges or post-offices. The curse of international 
menaces and the cost of naval armament doubtless influences 
largely the available resources of the Chilean Government; 
and nitrate dues are soon translated into terms of battleships ! 
There is no peace on these far-off shores of the New World ; 
and, whether as individuals or as nations, people are prey- 
ing upon each other to the best of their ability, as much, or 
more than in old Europe which gave them birth. 

The hard-working Chilean roto, or native of mainly 
aboriginal (Araucanian) blood has long since learned to 
strike, like the Anglo-Saxon, when his rights are threatened, 
and the vast distinctions of class between the wealthy and 
educated Chilean and these stalwart and humble labourers 
are a great gulf which can never be bridged. As to the 
Chilean roto — who corresponds to the Mexican peon or the 
Peruvian cholo, he is a born worker and born fighter. It 
was the terrific onslaught of the rotos which overwhelmed 
the Peruvians at Tacna, Arica, Tarapaca and everywhere 
else in the Pacific War, and inflicted such terrible punish- 
ment — and often barbaric cruelty — upon the Peruvian 
soldiery, who consisted of the less warlike strain of the 
Quechuas and Aymaras of Peru and Bolivia. In fighting 
among themselves the Chilean rotos fight to the death, and 
one method of the duel among them is possibly unique. 
The tW'O combatants are tied together (at their own request) 
side by side, when, armed with their knives, they set to, 
literally cutting each other into strips at times. Their 
singular temerity is unbounded; in a mining-camp where 
I stayed for a period a drunken roto, during some fiesta — 
and these are numerous — desirous of proving or acclaiming 
his valour ''como homhre^* — "as a man" — took a stick of 
dynamite and prepared it with cap and fuse. "A que yo 
resiste," he said to his companions — "I wager I can stand 
this " — and suiting the action to the word he lighted the fuse 
with his cigarette, holding the stick of dynamite in his hand. 
It exploded, blew his arm off and destroyed his eyesight, and 
the man was ruined for ever. This blending of endurance 
and ferocity in the Chilean is the heritage of the Araucanian 



328 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

and other Chilean tribes who, in pre-Hispanic days, success- 
fully resisted the advance of the Inca Empire. The Chilean 
labourers, as may be imagined, often form a problem for the 
British managers of the oficinas. Yet they have many good 
qualities : they are docile and not unreasonable when treated 
with justice; they are exceedingly hard-working and enter- 
prising, and they greatly respect the British character. They 
spend all they earn, demanding luxuries of food and drink 
unknown to other native peoples of this character. 

Iquique is situated upon the edge of a frightful desert, the 
desert of Tamarugal, and great sand-hills blown up by the 
wind seem to overhang it menacingly. Over these hills the 
nitrate railway goes to gain the pampa, and near at hand 
are the rich silver mines of Huantajaya. There is no vegeta- 
tion, not a blade of grass or a shrub in the vicinity, and 
the town is dependent upon produce brought in by steamers, 
whilst its water-supply was formerly provided in the same 
way, but is now brought from an Andine valley-spring eighty 
miles away, an enterprise formed by a British company. 

Wherever water is encountered in this arid littoral an oasis 
is formed — as at Pica and other places — and fruits and vege- 
tables are produced. The region of Tarapaca, it is to be 
recollected, is a rainless one. Were it not so, indeed, the 
nitrate would not exist there. Nature, in her singular hydro- 
graphic operation on the coast, due to the presence of the 
Andes and the coast currents, as we observed in Peru, has 
imposed the curse of aridity on the region. Yet let us 
not call it a curse. It is far healthier than the littoral of 
Brazil, corresponding to that latitude, and were it a rainy 
region the soluble salts which nitrate consists of would have 
been dissipated ages ago or never laid down. Moreover, 
this great desert has, in a sense, conferred other benefits upon 
Chile; for it served as a fortification for her aboriginal people 
against the Incas of Peru, and preserved her autonomy again 
in 1817. I have ridden from sunrise to sunset over this 
appalling waste, and have seen neither shrub nor leaf nor 
reptile, beast nor bird — save the occasional vulture picking 
at the carcase of some dead mule, fallen by the side of the 
desert track and fast stitfening into dry buckram under the 
influence of the sun and wind. Bones only lay here and 



CHILE 329 

there, covered and uncovered alternately by the breath of the 
desert gale — the only vestiges showing that man had passed 
that way, for footsteps and trail are often covered up and 
disappear like the wake of a ship upon the "silent highway." 
Yet stay, I must be accurate, good reader. There are other 
vestiges of man upon one part of the desert, for a line of 
bottles mark the way, as I have mentioned in another account 
— bottles thrown away by desert travellers, which strew the 
track across the plain for many leagues. 

Up in the Andes beyond these deserts I lived for a period 
in the interests of a London company. This company had 
been formed (upon reports by a German chemist) to exploit 
what were described in the prospectus of the company as 
"mountains of copper sulphate." Indeed the chairman of 
the board of directors, in an impassioned speech, said some- 
thing to the effect that "Providence had preserved that great 
deposit of wealth for the benefit of the shareholders ! " I 
investigated the "mountains of copper," and found that they 
were unfortunately but small surface deposits; and so I 
reported. But the company had other advisers and did not 
accept this view, and in the meantime I was requested to 
continue the construction work at the camp. A large stone 
house, a veritable mansion, was erected, as far as the upper 
walls, a street laid out with stone cottages, and a settlement 
of Peruvians, Chilean and Bolivian miners grew to being, 
of which I was the virtual head. Then corroboration came 
of my report. Probably now the only inhabitants of the 
village and home are beasts of prey, and the desert wind 
whistles through those half-raised walls, built with the 
money of enterprising London shareholders ! 

Of mineral wealth in this part of Chile, however, there is 
much. Enormous deposits of copper ore exist, and at 
Colluahuasi an important copper-mining industry has sprung 
to being in the last few years. A branch line has been built 
into this region from the Antofagasta and Bolivia Railway, 
rising to sixteen thousand feet nearly, in this excessively 
inclement region. When I first visited those mines, but a 
few years ago, they were little thought of, and some of them 
were unclaimed; but since then capitalists have been tumbling 
over each other to obtain possession of them at fancy prices. 



330 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

It is another instance of the marvellous conquest of the desert, 
which, good reader, you will have observed is a constantly 
occurring phase of progress on this region tributary to the 
Great Pacific Coast. Near to these mines are other singular 
freaks of Nature's metallurgical laboratory, in huge gravel 
banks cemented togethe- with a solution of copper silicates. 
The remarkable desert formations in cOpper of Atacama, 
moreover, are situated in this northern part of Chile. 

In these seemingly voiceless and stricken deserts there is, 
to the thoughtful observer, much of acute interest and value 
at every turn. The weird rock-formation, ancient upheaved 
shores, cliffs, enormous beds of conglomerate and shells, rare 
minerals, dikes, veins, porphyrus, tuffs, and all the strange 
and unique dispositions of Nature's upheaved and volcanic 
strata here on the roof of the world. Above it the mighty 
condor of the Andes soars, and everlasting snows upon the 
border of Bolivia catch the traveller's eye, as on soroche- 
stricken mule he traverses these high inclement plateaux. 
Tempted one day on a lonely journey through a long rocky 
defile by three young condors upon a rock-pinnacle, I 
descended from the saddle, tethered my mule, and, revolver 
in hand, hoped to stalk one of them and bear him off as a 
trophy. Useless : although scarcely able to fly they flapped 
away up the summit of a precipice, whilst the parent bird, 
gigantic and immovable, did not deign to stir from the rock- 
pinnacle where I had just beheld it as I ascended the canon. 

Other singular matters constantly arrested my attention in 
these high regions — 12,000 to 17,000 feet above sea-level; 
whether of the mineral, animal or vegetable world. I 
have spoken of the "glacier meadows" of California, but 
here in the Chilean and Bolivian Andes are singular "glacier 
meadows" also, if I may term them such. They consist of 
great reservoir-like areas of morass, the whole floor of which 
is covered with "spiked moss" growing so close and low as 
to afford almost an impenetrable surface, except to an iron 
bar, and so firm that passage on foot or horseback may be 
effected over it. These great spongy areas occupy glacier- 
carved depressions, often near the foot of the snow-line, 
although at times away from the neighbourhood of the snow. 
They are valuable as natural reservoirs, in a sense, in that 



CHILE 331 

they retain water from occasional rainfalls, and a small stream 
issues therefrom, where otherwise the valley would be abso- 
lutely dry. Another sing:ular plant-growth of these high 
plateaux of Chile and Bolivia is the llareta or yarcta (UmbeU 
lifcra), which is a valuable source of fuel, and indeed the only 
one in some places. On the tufts of coarse grass at these 
altitudes a singular eflcct is seen — the sunny side of each tuft 
is charred, whilst the shady side is untouched or covered with 
a patch of snow ; the effect of the midday heat and rarefied air. 
We must go slowly on foot here, good reader, "Mucho 
soroche aqui, senor," my attendant arriero says, as I halt 
to get breath after ascending a steep slope on foot. He 
speaks of the soroche— the effect of the rarefied air — as if it 
were something lying about in "chunks," and not a general 
atmospheric condition : and indeed he is not far wrong 
in a sense, for I have noticed as a singular fact that there is 
more soroche about in some places than others, as if it were 
influenced by the form of the particular caiion — possibly lack 
of wind passage. Upon these high, bleak plateaux great 
herds of the beautiful vicuiia roam, and I have hunted them 
both in Chile and Peru, and their "venison" is excellent 
eating. 

Few railways at present ascend the great zone of the Chilean 
and Bolivian Andes. The Antofagasta Railway, of which I 
have made mention before, is one of the most important of 
these. The province of Antofagasta formerly belonged to 
the republic of Bolivia, and formed its outlet to the sea, 
but she lost it in the Chilean War, and a few years ago 
acknowledged Chilean sovereignty thereto. The railway 
leaves the seaport of the same name — about 680 miles north 
of Valparaiso — and rises very rapidly, reaching an 1800 feet 
elevation in seventeen miles. A branch line connects it with 
the port of Mejillones, slightly to the north, a port which as 
a harbour is vastly superior to the general run of these open 
roadsteads of the Pacific Coast. 

Thence the line enters an important nitrate region, with 
some twenty oficinas; passes Calama, a copper-producing 
centre, 7,400 feet above sea-level, having crossed a zone of 
territory irrigated from the river Loa — refreshing to the eye 
after the sterility of the coastal desert. At ten thousand feet 



332 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

elevation the Loa is crossed by a fine steel viaduct, one of 
the most interesting structures of this nature in the world, 
and shortly we approach the San Pedro volcano, snow-capped 
always, smoking ever. The highest point reached is thirteen 
thousand feet on the main line, and 15,800 feet on the branch 
to Collahuasi, which place I have already spoken of. Beyond 
the summit, at Cebollar, is the extraordinary Borax Lake, 
which is a source of commercial profit to a well-known British 
company; and the gleaming white surface, 12,200 feet above 
sea-level, of this greatest borax deposit on the globe, arrests 
the traveller's eye from the train. Leaving these regions the 
line passes to where the panorama of the snow-clad Andes 
unfolds to the view; their culminating point, the grand 
Ollague, rising to twenty thousand feet, a giant landmark 
upon the Chile-Bolivia boundary line. Continuing thence its 
north-easterly route the railway reaches the Bolivian plateau, 
the southern portion of the great Titicaca basin, passes the 
town of Unini — rich centre for silver mines, among them 
the famous Huanchaca group, and thence skirts the eastern 
shore of the mysterious Lake Poopo, and reaches the Bolivian 
city of Oruro. 

Lake Poopo is the sister lake of Titicaca, receiving its 
waters in the way that a saucer might receive the contents 
of a cup, their brims placed at equal heights; for Titicaca, 
165 miles long and nearly goo feet deep in places, overflows 
into Poopo, which is 55 miles long and nowhere more than 
13 feet deep. 

Lake Poopo is "mysterious" because, out of more than 
tw'o hundred thousand cubic feet of water per minute which 
enter it only two thousand cubic feet leave it ; whilst the whole 
remarkable system forms a hydrographic entity of peculiar 
Andine formation, which has no outlet for its waters save 
by evaporation. A subterranean outlet has been suspected to 
the Pacific Coast, but never proved to exist. The surface of 
these lakes is more than twelve thousand feet above sea-level. 
Titicaca is the largest fresh-water lake in the world ; and upon 
its bosom we shall voyage literally above the clouds and out 
of sight of land. When we approach its eastern shore the 
snow-clad ranges of the Andes unfold to our view in their 
most stupendous part, the eastern Cordillera which overhangs 



CHILE 333 

the Amazonian valley; sixty miles of unbroken snowy sum- 
mits extending between the great uplifts of Illimani and 
Sorata. These Bolivian Andine giants both rise to more 
than twenty-one thousand feet. 

This region of Lake Titicaca is reached either by the con- 
tinuation of the Antofagasta line from Oruro to La Paz, the 
Bolivian capital, or by the Peruvian southern railway from 
Mollendo and Arequipa to Puno on the lake. A new line, 
moreover, is under construction, that from Arica on the coast 
— the Chilean-Peruvian seaport at the base of the fateful 
Morro, where the bloody struggle on the precipice took place 
in the war — across the Andes to the Titicaca basin. This 
line, whose construction is about to be carried out by a 
British firm for the Chilean Government, at a cost of three 
million sterling, will have a length of 250 miles, and crossing 
the coast desert will, by heavy engineering w-ork, ascend and 
cross the caiions and summits of the Cordillera to the Titicaca 
plateau. It is to be recollected that this zone of territory is — 
politically — still a debatable ground. 

The seaports of the coast of South America from Panama 
to Valparaiso, are subject to visitations of bubonic plague, 
and the consequent quarantine enforcements are exceedingly 
troublesome at times, although improvements have been made 
during the last few years. Coming down from the Andes 
near the Bolivian frontier across the arid pampas between 
the mountains and the nitrate region which forms the Chilean 
littoral or the province of Tarapaca — deserts whose western 
edge approaches Iquique, as before described — I heard of a 
serious epidemic of the plague and the rigid quarantine 
established at Iquique. When I reached the latter place, I 
found that the steamers neither came thither nor departed 
thence — the place was cut off from the outside world for the 
time being. Here was a pretty state of affairs; for matters 
called me urgently away by sea. Should I take horse and 
perform the sixty or seventy miles of hot, dusty ride to 
Tocopilla, where possibly a steamer — possibly, but doubtfully 
—might be obtained ? I decided that I would try rather my 
luck b,y taking the nitrate railway to Pisagua, another port 
some thirty miles to the north, for there w^ere rumours of a 
steamer there, and, having come down from the mountains, 



334 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

instead of from residence in Iquique, I found I should escape, 
in all probability, quarantine detention. So 1 took passage 
in the tren mixta, or "mixed" train; the mixture consisting 
of a long freight train of open cars loaded with sacks of 
nitrate, with a solitary, bare, rickety passenger-car attached 
thereto at the rear. That journey, good reader, was interest- 
ing if not comfortable ! There were about a dozen other 
passengers, and as the train swung round the sharp curves 
and down the steep gradients of the narrow-gauge railway 
we felt the bottom of the car giving way, and the whole 
structure seemed about to collapse ! Fortunately the train 
pulled up at a wayside station before disaster occurred, 
although we spent an anxious quarter of an hour before it 
stopped. And there the officials informed us that there was 
no other passenger-car available — would the passengers like 
to finish their journey on the nitrate sacks ? The passengers 
in a body declined or hesitated — all except myself. The 
probability of having to return to the plague-stopped Iquique, 
or of being delayed for weeks were far more formidable than 
a half-day's journey in an open truck, even under the burning 
Chilean sun. So I took my seat on a nitrate sack; my 
steamer trunk was hoisted up alongside, and away went the 
long train towards Pisagua, leaving a disconsolate group of 
native passengers around the wreck of their car. 

In my travels I have generally found that a certain luck 
attends the traveller who resolutely takes time by the fore- 
lock; and what I may call a "good travel-luck " has generally 
accompanied me upon my long journeying upon the Great 
Pacific Coast. The train rattled and jolted from midday to 
sunset along the Pisagua nitrate railway, its solitary 
passenger grilled by the sun and covered thick with the 
white dust which arose from the dry deserts through which 
the line takes its way. But as v^'e reached the edge of the 
desert, the summit of the huge sandy cliffs where the coastal 
plains of Tarapacd terminate, I looked down from the 
heights. What did I see? Something which filled me both 
tvith satisfaction and anxiety. There stretched the blue 
Pacific Ocean, and far below me the little port of Pisagua 
nestled, close to the long line of soundless breakers; and— 
and this was the source of my satisfaction — a steamer was 



CHILE 335 

lying in the bay; a steamer with the famihar form and 
funnels of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company's vessels ! 
Smoke was issuing from her funnels, and she had that 
appearance which betokened a speedy departure; and the last 
lighter had cast off from her side and was making its way 
to the pier. Moreover, as I looked, a burst of steam came 
from her syren, followed by the hoarse call which is the 
prelude to receiving the ship's papers from the captain of 
the port and for getting up of the anchor. Should I arrive 
in time ? 

The Chilean coast at Pisagua consists of a sandy precipice, 
rising almost sheer for thousands of feet from the shore to 
the desert plateau above, and down the face of this cliff the 
railway descends by a series of zig-zags, after the manner 
of several of the Chilean and Peruvian railways. Below is 
the town of Pisagua, and it and the railway were the scene 
of a severe bloody struggle between the Peruvians and the 
Chileans during the Pacific War in 1879, a few days after 
the capture of the Huascar, which I have mentioned before : 
engagements which were the precursor to Peru's loss of all 
her nitrate provinces. Down these zig-zags went the nitrate- 
train, and I almost forgot my anxiety for the steamer in the 
interest aroused by the topography of the route. Yet from 
time to time I turned my eyes to the bay, to see if she was 
under steam, and listened for the sound of up-getting moor- 
ings — listening almost against hope. As the train neared 
the town I was struck by the singular appearance of the 
place; it looked as if it had suffered from a conflagration, and 
in fact, as I alighted at the platform, I learned that two days 
before the whole town had been practically wiped out by a 
fire; its buildings, all being of wood, having soon been con- 
sumed. x\lso, I was informed, there was neither lodging nor 
■ — scarcely — food to be obtained. I did not want either if I 
could catch my steamer, whose funnels I could still see arising 
beyond in the bay. I rushed to the telegraph office whilst a 
sturdy Chilean boatman shouldered my trunk, for I had a 
cable to send before leaving. "You are not burnt out then ? " 
I said to the clerk; to which he replied, "No, senor, we have 
been saved miraculously," and he pointed to a picture of the 
Virgin, which hung upon the wall outside, adding, "The 



33G THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

fire came as far as the picture, and stopped ! " Down to the 
wharf I hastened, where the Chilean boatmen were ready 
to cast off. "Vamos patron," they urged — "let us hurry," 
"£/ Vapor is going; ya se hace a la mar." And indeed a 
hoarse whistle of departure sounded from the bay as I 
embarked. "Pull for all you are worth — ten dollars extra 
if you get me on board," I replied. 

Now if there are any men in the world who will do their 
best for you under such circumstances as these, these are 
the Chilean boatmen. As a race the roto^ or native of Chile, 
is exceedingly "game"; he loves a contest, and never gives 
in. Splendidly those two swarthy, wiry fellows pulled, as I 
steered the little cockle-shell over the waves of the harbour, 
her nose towards the hull — looming large now — of the Eng- 
lish steamer. The rattle of the chains of the hauser-holes 
and the whirring of the steam-winch which was drawing up 
the anchor came towards us, and I could see the preparations 
for hauling up the gangway-ladder. But valiantly the boat- 
men pulled; rounded the vessel's stern, hooked on with their 
boat-hook, and up the side I went, followed by the battered 
steamer trunk on my boatman's shoulder; whilst even as we 
gained the deck the steamer turned her prow to the open sea. 
But it might go now; I stuffed a ten-dollar Chilean bill and 
a handful of silver into the roto's hand, and heard his 
"Gracias patron," as he swung himself down a rope into his 
shallop; and in a few minutes the burnt-out town of Pisagua 
and the zig-zag track of the railway up the sandy precipice 
were wiped out in the haze of distance. My good "travel- 
luck " had not deserted me, for had I missed that steamer I 
should have languished in Pisagua for a month ! 

It would be much more than inaccurate to carry away the 
impression on perusing these pages that Chile consists only 
of arid deserts, snow-capped mountains and savage scenery 
generally. These are, as ever, but the framing which does 
but accentuate the fertile plains and softer environment where 
the Hispanic civilization dwells. The Central Valley of Chile 
and its fertile and beautiful tracts of cultivated land, the 
handsome cities of Valparaiso and Santiago, with their 
characteristic life and refinement, the beautiful harbour and 
town of Valdivia, gemmed with vineyards, cornfields and 



CHILE 337 

luxurious haciendas, are in astonishing contrast with the 
aridity and consequent savagery of the north. For Chile, 
due to its vast range of latitude, embodies a correspondingly 
wide range of climate and temperature. As to the Chilean 
forests, the whole of the Pacific slope, from Valdivia to the 
Beagle Channel, a distance of five or six hundred miles, is 
timbered ; and within the memory of man the woods extended 
as far north as Valparaiso. In this connection, also, I 
should make mention of the petrified forest stumps which I 
have passed in the pampa of Tamaragal in the arid north, 
before described, which go to show that in remote ages other 
climatic conditions prevailed there. Indeed, there are 
various evidences of such changes in other matters also, which 
it would not be within the province of this book to discuss. 
The mean temperature of the various parts of Chile are : 
64° F. at Iquique, latitude 20°; Valparaiso 59°, latitude 
^2"; Ancid 53°, latitude 41"; whilst in Tierra del Fuego the 
mean is 42", latitude 55°. In the northern deserts, which I 
have spoken of, great diurnal changes of temperature are 
general, from 100° at midday to 36° at night. As to the 
rainfall there is none in those northern regions, whilst to- 
wards the south it rises progressively to nearly 150 inches 
below the 40th parallel ; whilst snow falls on the coast zone 
south of that latitude, and a rainy, stormy region completes 
this, the lower end of the continent. Dense forests and 
extensive fishing-grounds form the main matters of human 
industry in the extreme south. 

Santiago, the capital, lying in a beautiful valley inland 
from the port and city of Valparaiso, at 1,840 feet above sea- 
level, with an excellent climate, is typically Spanish- 
American, like its sister cities — Lima, Quito, Bogotil, Mexico, 
upon the great Pacific littoral ; but the Chilean capital is 
immeasurably more progressive than any of them, except, 
perhaps, in its sphere, Mexico. The same domestic architec- 
ture of patios, barred windows, balconies, plazas, cathedrals, 
alamedas and the like, the chapters in stone from old Spain 
of colonial days we find here. Modern architecture, unfortu- 
nately, in all these cities of the Spanish-American West runs 
now too much to stucco and pretension. It is a time of 
transition. The old order is changing; the solidity and 
z 



338 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

refinement of viceregal days have given place to another 
phase. "Liberty, Fraternity and Equality"; showy public 
buildings, garish electric lights and elaborate penal establish- 
ments are the order of the day : but of real liberty and equality 
these republics have yet principally the theory and not the 
substance. Some sense of fraternity there is, admirable and 
pleasing in its way, of Don Quixote de la Mancha, which 
the whole of Spanish America has inherited in more or less 
degree. But the Chilean is a harder-headed man of the world 
in some respects than his cousins to the north ; and the 
strenuous company-promoting and financial operations which 
at times are a feature of the country are worthy, in their lesser 
sphere, of London or New York. The Chilean gentleman 
is courteous, and the Chilean girl of the upper class attractive, 
like all her sisters of Spanish America. Indeed, the foreigner 
who stays in these countries will rarely escape from taking 
his life's partner there — save as there may be safety in 
numbers ! As to the young men of fashion, neither in Chile, 
Mexico or Peru can we hold them up to example, as a rule. 
They lack vigour and the strenuous life, and are too much 
addicted to the allurements of their cities. They should get 
out into the country and take a course of exploration. 

The most important industrial matter in Chile is her nitrate, 
which I have mentioned before. Chilean capitalists, in addi- 
tion to British and German, have millions of dollars invested 
in this business. It is always a great question if the country 
benefits by this somewhat easily got wealth : it corrupted the 
Peruvians when they were the owners of it; and it is freely 
stated that the Chileans are being spoilt by its possession. 
I will translate — freely — a paragraph from a Chilean paper 
of recent date, one of the leading organs of Valparaiso,^ 
in order to show Chilean criticisms of themselves — 

"The nitrate industry has produced for Chile, since 1880, 
more than a thousand million dollars. This enormous sum 
has been ill-spent or wasted in great part without the country 
receiving from its governors any benefits which might be 
called such. Neither railways, wharfs, ships, coast defence 
works, sanitation works, nor sulhcient schools nor libraries 
are found where they are wanted. Sumptuous public 

^ El Mercurio dt Valparaiso. 



CHILE 339 

buildings and houses in the capital alone, it is true, have 
sprung- up, leaving other places in abandonment. But if no 
real progress has been assured the nitrate revenues have 
afforded a splendid panacea for hungry office-seekers, 
pensioners, and for nepotism generally — pleasure journeys 
to Europe or North America at the public cost under pretext 
of scientific commissions or for encouraging immigration ! " 

Of course, in this connection it must be recollected that 
Spanish-Americans are fond of attacking their own institu- 
tions, and whilst there is much of truth in the above, possibly 
the English of South America suffer from national pessimism 
at times, like the English of Britain. 

The Chileans have also acquired the soubriquet of the 
"Yankees of South America," from their marked spirit of 
enterprise over their South-American cousins generally. But 
the Chileans do not love the Americans, or "Yanquis," as 
they term them. Early in the year 1909, when the American 
squadron stayed at Valparaiso, the Chilean papers con- 
gratulated themselves that no serious fracas had occurred 
with the American sailors as on other similar occasions. 
"Sober, the American sailor is not a bad fellow," says a 
leading Chilean paper. ^ "Drunk, he is a brute who respects 
no one, especially the people of a small country." The fact 
is that the American has inherited the British trait of despis- 
ing weaker people of a darker skin than his own, but he does 
it much more offensively than the Briton. 

Valparaiso, like Callao, has suffered severely from two 
elements in its past history — buccaneers and earthquakes. 
Drake in 1578, Hawkins in 1596, Von Noort and other sea- 
thieving Dutchmen later. Appalling earthquake shocks and 
tidal waves throughout all these centuries culminated in the 
awful holocaust of August 1906, when the whole city was 
wrecked, and people, variously estimated between hundreds 
and thousands, perished. The population of Valparaiso is 
about 150,000, and that of Santiago 325,000. 

Valdivia, of which mention has been made, lies about five 
hundred miles south of Valparaiso, and is the centre of an 
important and prosperous German colony, whose foundation 
was laid in 1850. State-aided emigration for British colonists 

z 2 ^ El Chileno. 



340 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

was inaugurated to people the southern lands of the republic 
some time ago, but, in general terms, this has been a failure. 

Chile has been magnificently endowed by Nature with 
mineral wealth — apart from the nitrate — and her copper mines 
have yielded a large part of the world's stock. Coal also 
exists, and coal-mining is among the important industries of 
the country. Chief among the coal-fields are those of Lota 
on the coast. But the import of coal from Britain and from 
Australia far exceed the home production. As to agriculture 
in the temperate regions of the zone of Santiago, rich crops 
of wheat, maize and flourishing vineyards are the basis of 
industry; the wine of Chile being famous upon the coast, 
and its manufacture and sale having produced several Chilean 
millionaires. Alfalfa also is freely grown, but all these pro- 
ducts are cultivated under irrigation, as is the case in the 
Central Valley. In the Concepcion region, however, south 
of Valparaiso, irrigation is little required, and this strong and 
vigorous centre supports a good agricultural class. Cattle- 
breeding is an important branch of its industry. Great 
lumbering and farming possibilities exist in this southern 
region, whose latitude, it is to be recollected, is more or less 
equivalent to the northern latitude of San Francisco in 
California. 

Of railways we have already noticed the northern systems 
— an existing and a projected trans-Cordilleran line; the 
nitrate railways, and various shorter systems from coast ports. 
The Great Central Valley is traversed in part by a railway 
uniting the capital and the various towns and seaports of 
Chile's fertile and prosperous regions. From Santiago the 
Great Trans-Andine Railway takes its way, the interoceanic 
line to Argentine and Buenos Ayres, whose completion is 
expected to be brought about in 1910. 

This line, whose route over the Great Cumbre, or summit, 
is of historical interest, is 888 miles long from the Pacific to 
the Atlantic. Ascending from the Pacific Coast at Val- 
paraiso the line perforates below the pass, whose considerable 
elevation is 12,600 feet above sea-level, and exceedingly heavy 
engineering work has been involved, culminating in extensive 
tunnelling; the elevation of the tunnel being 10,460 feet. 
Nature displays her Cordilleran handiwork in stupendous 



CHILE 341 

form in these high, inclement regions — mountain scenery 
grand and imposing. OutHned against the azure of the 
Cordillcran sky is Aconcagua, a black basaltic mass, capped 
with a mantle of gleaming snow and ice. The austral winter 
of this region is one of terrific snowstorms, which fill the 
passes with intransitable drifts. In the open season, from 
November to April, which constitutes the spring and summer 
of the south temperate zone, traffic is maintained, pending 
the completion of the line, and by stage coach and on mule- 
back; but in mid-winter the traveller crosses at his peril, 
avalanche and snow-drift threatening him, or causing 
enforced isolation in mountain shelters. It is to be recollected 
that this railway route is one of the main lines of travel from 
Europe to the towns and seaports of the Pacific Coast of 
South America; the traveller taking between that route and 
the Straits of Magellan or the Isthmus of Panama. 

It was over this high pass that San Martin and O'Higgins 
— liberators of Chile and Peru from the power of Spain — 
made their famous march in 1817. To-day it forms part of 
the dividing line between Chile and Argentina, which nations 
regard each other across it with the stony gaze of an armed 
peace, yet respecting the boundary awarded them by the 
arbitration of King Edward of Britain. Moreover, upon 
this high pass, thirteen thousand feet above the level of the 
sea, these nations erected and unveiled, in 1904, a remark- 
able monument; and the native or the traveller, as he scales 
the inclement heights, is reminded suddenly of the mandate 
of the Prince of Peace, for, arresting his gaze, fronting upon 
those eternal Andine snows, is the colossal bronze statue of 
"El Cristo de Los Andes." 



XVI 

TO SUM UP 

We have finished our survey of the Great Coast, and have 
only to consider it from the general aspect of "world-politics." 
It has been a theme of some writers that the Pacific Ocean is 
destined to become the main centre of human activity in the 
future; that, just as this centre shifted from the Mediter- 
ranean to the Atlantic, so will it move from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific. To agree with this assumption involves the 
unpalatable supposition that the yellow race is to predominate 
in the future; and this we shall beg leave to reject. We 
believe that the leaders of civilization are to remain the 
European races and their American (and Australian) 
offshoots. It is true that these occupy the whole of the Great 
Pacific Coast of America (and Australia on the other side) ; 
but Japan dominates in the Western Pacific — Japan who has 
worthily forged to the front so recently — and behind her, 
geographically and ethnologically, is the slumbering giant 
of China, rubbing his eyes now, and awakening. We shall 
refuse to believe that the sceptre of civilization is to fall from 
the hands of the Christian nations ; and in any case we have 
marked across the Great Pacific Ocean that splendid diagonal 
from British Columbia and California to Australia and New 
Zealand. Let the giant awake. 

As to the "yellow peril" on America's shores, the 
Mongolian race is already excluded from settlement or 
immigration in Anglo-America. Not so, however, in 
Spanish America; and Peru, Ecuador and other countries 
of the littoral view with tolerance, and even encourage, 
Japanese immigration. Chinese have been freely brought in 
in the past — and were generally brutally treated — and now 
shiploads of Japanese are arriving at Callao. British and 
other sugar-producing firms upon the Peruvian coast are 
employing numbers of them, and state that they prefer them 

342 



""^^"^^ 




o 



OJ 



TO SUM UP 343 

to the native Cholos. Mexico says that she looks with equal 
favour towards Asia as towards Europe, as the "bridge of 
the world's commerce." Also it must not be forgotten that 
there is a certain affinity between Asiatics and the Peruvian 
and Mexican indigenes; a heritage, perhaps, of the supposed 
Asiatic origin of the Aztecs and Incas. I have often been 
startled, in remote parts of these countries, to observe the 
"Mongolian" face among the Indians. But the student of 
race-conditions would deplore to see the lands of Spanish 
America stuffed with Asiatics, for these lands are really a 
heritage for the European peoples, only awaiting the flow 
of population that way ; and probably growing enlighten- 
ment among ^lexican and Peruvian governments will cause 
the Anglo-American policy to be followed in this respect. 

We have seen how considerable a range of peoples, alien 
and indigenous, inhabit this great littoral and the regions 
tributary thereto. First, we have the Anglo-American people, 
of white, highly-civilized races, as represented by the inhabit- 
ants of British Columbia, largely of British stock, and whom 
we have given priority of place as regards civilization upon 
the coast : and the people of California and others of the 
western states of the United States, British in language and 
character also, but with a large admixture of other races and 
ideals. Second, the Spanish-American peoples, occupying 
an immense territory as different nations, but varying only 
slightly from their general type notwithstanding; with the 
basis of a high type of civilization distinct from the Anglo- 
American. These have their offshoots of mixed peoples, 
such as the Peones, Cholos and Rotos, of Mexico, Peru and 
Chile respectively ; all civilized. Christianized people in a 
measure. Third, the pure Amerinds; the Indians inhabiting 
the coast region, in places, of both North and South America; 
and the Eskimos of Alaska. As to the origin of all these 
latter groups, the general assumption is that the country 
was peopled both from Asia and Europe, in the Stone Ages, 
when these continents were connected with America via 
Behring Straits, on the one hand, and via the Faroes and 
Iceland on the other ; for it has been shown that both the 
short-headed Mongol and the long-headed European types 
seem to be present among the Amerinds. But the unique 



344 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

civilizations of Aztec and Inca were undoubtdly from Asia 
and Egypt, as before discussed. To-day the Amerinds are 
of exceedingly varied type and of all grades of capability, 
from the intelligent native people of Mexico down to the 
abject naked type of the Eastern slopes of the Andes. These 
latter, however, are absolutely cut off from the Pacific littoral 
by the Andes. The Incas kept them back with a chain of 
forts, even if the inclement climate of the uplands had not 
been a sufficient deterrent. Nevertheless, the naked savage 
of the ultra-montane regions overflowed round the southern 
end of the Andes, as evidenced in the remaining Indians of 
the extreme south of Chile, whose customs are only compar- 
able with those of Drift Man. These are the Yaghans : 
naked in their canoes, and throwing their women overboard 
to lighten them in a storm and secure their own safety. 
This is, perhaps, the most striking example of the "strenuous 
life," as interpreted in America to-day ! Everywhere along 
this coast does civilization rub shoulders with barbarism. In 
Vancouver the Indian and his wigwams and totems are almost 
part of the fringe of white life; in California the degenerate 
red man drags out a lazy, vicious existence among the white 
usurpers of the soil ; in Mexico some of the Pacific Coast 
tribes still venerate crocodiles as their spiritual kin, whilst 
higher in the scale the sandalled and blanketed peon rubs 
shoulders with the frock-coated or Parisian-clad Mexican of 
the upper class — conditions analogous to those obtaining in 
Peru, Ecuador, and Chile. In Peru, however, the vigorous 
Cholo of the Andes still strives to maintain, against the 
unfair land laws of the European race, his small holding of 
the "Andenes" on his splendid, inclement uplands : his little 
land-patch, which supports him and his family ; a happy 
remnant of Inca times. 

We have, therefore, on the Pacific Coast of America, two 
distinct types of civilization : the Anglo-American and the 
Spanish-American, working out their several destinies side 
by side; the boundary line between them being the northern 
frontier of Mexico. Both civilizations contain much of value; 
both have much to learn from each other. The one has 
commercialism as its mainspring principally; the other a 
species of idealism, as yet largely futile, but containing much 



TO SUM UP 345 

of value — more than is at present admitted — for the future 
of civiHzation in America. 

The Spanish-American character is much more complex 
than the Anglo-American. It has been said that the 
Americans of the United States are all born engineers; with 
equal reason it might be averred that all the Latin-Americans 
are born lawyers, for what Nature denied them in ingenuity 
she made up in sophistry and eloquence, and with twisted 
phrase and forestalled argument they leave the stupid 
Northerner agape ! Yet there is much that is attractive in 
their social life and idealism ; much that is of value as an 
offset to the Northerner's sheer commercialism. We may 
beg leave to doubt whether the strenuous American in the 
twenty-fifth storey of his sky-scraper, deafened by the eternal 
clack of his typewriter (the mechanical voice of deep schemes 
for pelf), necessarily represents a higher civilization than 
the eloquent and idealistic Spanish-American in his pastoral 
environment. The wonderful vitality of this race is nowhere 
more evident than in its unanimity of language and customs 
and institutions throughout this enormous world of Spanish 
America. Perhaps the simplest and richest language in the 
world is Spanish, and the most virile next to English. The 
capitals and towns of Mexico, Colombia, Peru or Chile all 
bear a similar stamp, and their customs and ideals vary 
little one from the other. Yet the Spanish-American peoples 
have grave race defects to overcome, as they have also diffi- 
culties of environment. On the one hand, they dwell in lands 
surrounded or traversed by stupendous mountain chains or 
menaced by unhealthy lowlands, and on the other their 
development is marred by a spirit of unrest. When one has 
to cross mountain passes above the snow-line to reach the 
next town, and on arriving there finds that some one has 
launched a proniinciamiejito and proclaimed himself presi- 
dent, life naturally takes on a different aspect to that in 
England or the United States. At present these handsome, 
isolated " Madrids " of the new world are at some disad- 
vantage in point of access^ — perhaps the new science of 
aviation will benefit them ! Moreover, who can doubt that 
there shall yet be discovered some use for these great high 
places; some new element depending upon elevation, valuable 



346 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

to the scientist and to humanity to-morrow. In all the 
Spanish-American countries the principal internal question 
largely resolves itself into a race problem. Their people consist 
of a small educated upper class who monopolize the wealth and 
knowledge of the community, a great bulk of lower class 
formed of the mixture of both races, and almost an equal 
bulk of Indians. What is to be their future? In Mexico 
only about thirteen per cent, of the population can read and 
write ; in Peru and other South-American countries the 
proportion is much less; whilst in none of these is there any 
bulk of a middle-class people, such as forms the mainstay of 
civilization everywhere. Fortunately this race problem is 
not attended by any race antagonism. It is true that there 
is a yearning to be considered of white skin, but there is no 
antipathy between the whites and the red (or brown) part 
of the population, and fusion and intermarriage go on day 
by day — conditions which have never been brought about 
between the white and black races. The aborigines of 
Mexico and Peru are far superior to the negroes or the 
Mongolians, or will be when civilization overtakes them, 
and there is no bar to their assimilation with the whites. 
Indeed, they form a good substratum constantly being drawn 
upon, and, from Mexico to Cape Horn, there is growing to 
being a brown race, ever increasing in civilization dominated 
by the excellent Hispanic ideals. Their faults have been 
shown to the world by every traveller; their virtues have 
been rarely depicted. 

The main question appears to be as to whether these people 
are to develop under the regime of commercialism, as the 
Anglo-Americans have, or whether nature has any other 
(and easily more noble) method in store for them. Their 
great need is for more ideas and people from the outside. 
The overflowing and highly-civilized German peoples might 
well look that way as a field for emigration, and indeed they 
are beginning to do so. At present there is not much indica- 
tion on the part of the governing classes of Spanish America 
towards any philosophical or organized use or distribution of 
natural resources in those countries. Mexico is a land of 
big landowners and a semi-serf peon race; Peru is "a beggar 
sitting upon a heap of gold " ; in Chile a few fortunate 



TO SUM UP 347 

capitalists dig nitrate wealth from the ground and revel in 
luxury at the expense of a great bulk of rotos, or semi-Indian 
workers. All these countries consist of huge areas of lands 
full of natural resources, each many times the size of the 
land of European nations, with a mere handful of a few 
million inhabitants — nearly all poor. Yet no philosophical 
effort has ever been made to apply natural resource to human 
insufficiency. However, it would be impertinent of the 
foreigner to criticize too closely this condition, for such a 
principle of distribution or organization is not carried out 
even in Britain or the United States; or anywhere else. 
In Canada and California, instead of great areas of land and 
resources being set aside for the use of communities and 
citizens, the conditions of the old world are simply being 
reproduced in the giving of the land up to syndicates, share 
markets, and those who can afford to purchase or spend 
money upon it. True civilization will begin when this ends 
or is modified, and when a sufficient portion of the land is 
looked upon as an imperial asset, to go against taxation. 

Upon this great Pacific sphere the main work of man's 
hands at present is the reclaiming of the wilderness. But 
the conquest of the desert seems to be undertaken mainly 
by the peoples of Anglo-American race : the Spanish- 
American scarcely puts his hand to the work of the pioneer. 
He loves the professions and the political arena, where, if 
work he must, he can do it in a black coa{. He talks grandilo- 
quently of progress, but does not put his hand to the plough. 
In Latin America there is no class of people corresponding 
to the farmer and his men of English-speaking countries, 
for the young man with any strain of white race will not 
work in the fields, but prefers to pass his life behind shop 
counters, selling half-yards of ribbon to bargaining seiioras 
and seiioritas ; or giving short weight in pounds of lard and 
cheese to the native purchasers ! Probably no country can 
ever be truly great in which a portion of its people do not 
dig the soil ; for the actual contact with Mother Earth is that 
which give physical stamina and mental balance. A "nation 
of shopkeepers " alone must be a nation of usurers ; and, 
moreover, "shopkeeping " cannot always last in the develop- 
ment of civilization, as a nation's main occupation. 



348 



THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 



The conditions of elevation above sea-level enter much into 
the matter of development upon this great coast. The 
highest point of human habitation in Europe, that of the 
monks of St. Bernard, is less than 8,500 feet, an elevation 
which in Peru or Bolivia v^ould be considered a mere half- 
way house to large cities at altitudes of 11,000 or 14,000. I 
have engaged in horse-racing on a regular course at 10,000 
feet, and lived for long periods in small communities at 
17,000 feet. In the latter the conditions of ordinary life are 
not much changed to the hardy native, but are trying to the 
foreigner, although the tonic air and bracing environment 
are often enjoyable and invigorating to those of strong heart, 
who do not fear the "soroche " or "mal de montaiia." Indeed, 
the uplands of the Andes from 8,000 to 12,000 feet above 
sea-level are splendid regions for a vigorous race. 

As we have seen, the great Cordillera all along the coast, 
which it parallels, and the height at which railways cross it, 
is a determining factor in industrial development. Thus it is 
instructive to cast a glance at the principal summit-crossings 
of the trans-cordilleran railways, as follows: — 



Grand Trunk Pacific . 


3,712 feet. 


British Columbia ^•■ 


Canadian Pacific 
Great Northern . 
Northern Pacific 
Southern Pacific , . 


5,299 

5,202 

5,569 
8,247 




Washington 
California 


Santa Ve . 
Mexican Central 


7,510 
5,250 




Mexico 


Tehuantepec 
Panama 


10,000 
730 
300 


J, 


1 
Panama 


Guayaquil and Quito . 

Payta-Maranon . 

Oroya 

Peruvian Southern 


12,000 

6,600 

. 15,660 

14,660 




Ecuador 
Peru 1 

,, 


Arica-La Paz 


12,000 


>, 


Peru-Chile-Bolivia ^ 


Antofagasta 


13,000 


,, 


Chile-Bolivia 


Transandine 


10,460 


,, 


Chile-Argentina 



Which of the states of the Great Pacific Coast may be 
expected to develop to greatest importance? It depends 
upon two factors — topography and race. Peru and Chile are 

^ Under construction or projected. 




< 

Q 

< 

X 

H 

o 



TO SUM UP 349 

much restricted to coast strips, cut off from the interior by 
the Andes whose passes are rarely lower than twelve thousand 
to fourteen thousand feet above sea-level. Behind them, it 
is true, are the boundless regions of the Amazon and La 
Plata regions, but these belong to the Atlantic sphere. 
Colombia and Ecuador are in similar condition ; Mexico less 
so ; whilst as to their peoples they are generally non-inventive 
and non-manufacturing in character. In this connection, 
however, these countries are being invaded — not politically — 
by commercial peoples. California also consists of a coastal 
region barred from the interior of the continent by a great 
Cordillera, backed, indeed, by a mighty Sahara. In British 
Columbia, as well as Oregon and Washington, we have a 
less divided region, with huge rivers and valleys coming 
from the interior to the sea and somewhat breaking down 
the inevitable andine structure. In British Columbia also 
we have the people who are most advanced in respect for 
the law; their heritage of British character; and this, added 
to the influence of the "induction coil" of energy of their 
American neighbours, and the circumstance of their topo- 
graphic environment, would seem to point to this British 
Empire front as a land of perhaps more ideal conditions for 
rapid progress than their neighbours. 

Turning now to possible political or geographical develop- 
ment or menace among these communities it must be recol- 
lected that there is a certain class of Americans which has 
been termed the "North Pole to Panama" school; that is, 
their ideas of territorial absorption would include all the 
regions coming within those points ! This would include the 
British Dominion of Canada (which, it is to be recollected, 
is larger territorially than the United States), Mexico, and 
the Central American states. But this school, which at the 
close of last century showed a tendency to grow, has fallen 
off with the growing sanity of American foreign politics. 
As regards Mexico and Central America it is very doubtful 
if such conquest will ever be regarded seriously by the 
Americans, notwithstanding the fears that have been enter- 
tained in Spanish America by the political acquisition of 
the Panama strip. The Americans are too sensible a people 
to saddle themselves wi'th the governance of a people of 



350 THE GREAT TACIFIC COAST 

another race; they know that they have not the genius for 
governing it (as Britain has), and their experiences in the 
PhiHppines and Cuba have had the effect of a great shrinking 
in the "imperial" tendencies which the defeat of Spain 
momentarily engendered. There is a school of thinkers in 
Europe which professes to see an American menace ever 
active towards Mexico and South America, and who look 
for territorial expansion by the United States; but this school 
is probably misinformed. The straightforward behaviour 
of the United States towards Cuba is an evidence of good 
faith, which even their machinations regarding Panama 
cannot set aside. The Mexican need not, in normal con- 
ditions, fear an American invasion. The Americans, like the 
British, are not fond of rattling the sabre, and the occasional 
exhibition of the "big stick" comes under quite another 
category. As regards the possibilities of American menace 
to Canada, the United States has shown no predatory in- 
stincts, although w^hat the future might contain he would be 
a wise prophet who might prophesy. But there are no 
indications of menace; and the United States has still its 
own enormous western territory to develop. Canada in the 
course of one generation will be a Power itself, and both 
nations are developing side by side in neighbourly attitude. 
There is a remarkable '* American invasion" of Canada taking 
place at present, it is true; an invasion of a useful element of 
farmers from below the border. 

As to the vulnerability of the United States there is always 
the possibility of Japanese menace, and in the coming growth 
and dominion of the Pacific such may arise, as indeed 
questions have arisen in the recent past between the two 
nations. San Francisco and Puget Sound ports might be 
taken, but it is doubtful if they could be held, once the 
American leviathan were aroused. The Anglo-Japanese 
alliance, moreover, if it continue, ought to be a factor for 
peace always on the Great Pacific Coast. In the event of 
a war with any maritime nation the most pregnable part of 
the United States would be Alaska, which might be lost, and 
which would require a fleet to protect it which could be ill 
spared from work elsewhere. The rapid rise of British 
imperial union and the beginning of a Canadian navy has 




M 

n 

>^ 

o 



w 



TO SUM UP 351 

an important bearing upon the coast; and an added bul- 
■wark — if such were necessary — against Asiatic attack. A 
Canadian navy at Esquimalt and an Austrahan and New 
Zealand navy, moreover, will ensure for Anglo-Saxon power 
the great diagonal from the North-Eastern Pacific to the 
South- Western Pacific. 

The most disturbing factors among the Pacific Coast 
peoples of South America are questions of boundary and 
possession. The bitter controversy between Peru and Chile 
upon Tacna and Arica, heritage of the nitrate war of last 
century, has not been stilled; rather it has taken on an acute 
form again : Chile withdrawing her minister from Lima for an 
alleged slight in the non-acceptance by the Peruvians of a 
wreath which the first-named country had sent to be placed 
upon the monument commemorating the names of those who 
fell in the war. Whilst the observer cannot fail to sympathize 
with the Peruvians, as to the past terrible losses they experi- 
enced, it is evident that they are often haughty and yet 
pusillanimous; whilst the Chileans are tenacious and grasp- 
ing, and pretend to a sense of justification and of contempt 
for Peru. This is tempered by a dread that Peru may 
become a strong nation again and is but biding her time. 
Peru is forming her navy again slowly, but it is doubtful 
if this could ever compete with the Chileans, who are born 
sea-fighters, and who, moreover, have enjoyed the tuition 
of British sailors in the past. It is time that a mediator 
should offer its interposition to settle this rankling question. 

What the political and commercial effect of the Panama 
Canal will be is largely a matter of conjecture at present. It 
is to be recollected that the political and commercial world 
lies principally — almost wholly — to the north of the isthmus, 
with ninety-five per cent., nearly, of the world's population, 
and as regards Europe and Asia little advantage is gained 
over Suez. Indeed, as regards the United States, it has even 
been objected by Americans that the effect of the Canal will 
be largely to the benefit of Japan ! As to South America it 
must also be recollected that the Pacific littoral embodies less 
than ten per cent, of the whole area of the continent, with 
possibilities of expansion in commerce which must depend 
largely upon its railway development eastwardly. It has yet 



352 THE GKEAT PACIFIC COAST 

to be shown that freight costs via Panama, whether east or 
west, will be, as regards the Americas, cheaper than those of 
transcontinental railways. Other matters which have been 
urged against the canal are the difficulties of its maintenance. 
It has been said that these will be greater than those of 
construction, and that the lock-type of canal in this region 
will be subject to the danger of floods, swollen rivers, 
bursting dams, earthcjuakes and other matters. On the 
other hand it is urged that all these are imaginary difficulties 
which engineering science can overcome. So far from the 
canal not being of general utility it might be necessary, with 
the rise of the Pacific Ocean as a world centre, to duplicate 
it; and then perhaps it will be the turn of Nicaragua to lend 
its isthmian route to the spade, or even that of Tehuantepec. 
It is to be recollected that, long ago, a United States com- 
mission reported that a Tehuantepec canal would be a natural 
prolongation of the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean ! 
Remarkable it seems, in this connection, that the idea of the 
ship-railway has died out. Probably it must recur, if the 
prophesied commercial rise of the Pacific takes place. The 
project has never had justice done to it. There is probably 
no mechanical impossibility in running a ship into a dock 
and running ship and dock and all across a solidly-constructed 
tramway from sea to sea, which a ship-railway might essentially 
be. It might prove even less costly and difficult than making 
the ship climb a lock-stairway, such as the Panama Canal 
will be. The future shall decide all these matters of the 
utility of this great canal ; for the present we are content that 
man's ingenuity has called for it and is accomplishing it. 

In considering the future of much of this Great Coast, 
climate must be taken into account. The climatic conditions 
of the Pacific littoral of both North and South America are 
generally superior to those of the Atlantic littoral. British 
Columbia and Alaska, with their temperate, habitable regions, 
are in great contrast to the ice and fog-bound coasts of 
Labrador ; California, with its delicious climate, to the 
extreme of heat and cold of New York ; and Peru and Chile, 
dry and temperate, to the hot and humid climate of Brazil, 
as I have shown elsewhere. If the coast is restricted by the 
Cordillera it at least ofTers the traveller or dweller a choice 



TO SUM UP 353 

of climate in a day's march, ranging from tropical to arctic, 
according to the elevation he may choose. The malaria 
encountered upon the coast, from California to Chile, is not 
malignant, and is easily susceptible to remedy. Indeed, the 
region provided its own remedy — the cinchona, or quinine of 
commerce, which Peru gave to the world when the wife of a 
viceroy fell ill of a tertian fever in 1630, and was cured with 
doses of the bark. Yellow fever and bubonic plague are 
now of restricted occurrence, and improved sanitation and 
quarantine measures are rendering these scourges less 
troublesome day by day. 

Many staple articles are produced upon the coast, to supply 
all its own wants and for large export trades. Thus, in their 
places I have described the timber of British Columbia, 
Oregon and California; whilst the forests of Chihuahua in 
Mexico, and of the south of Chile contain vast areas of com- 
mercial wood : yet all these sources are being denuded ; no 
one, save on a small scale the United States Government, 
is troubling themselves with replanting, and exhaustion will 
loom up within few generations. Wheat is the real "gold" 
of the North Pacific — British Columbia and Oregon and 
inland thence — but we shall not forget that the Chinaman 
has gone home with the taste of wheat in his mouth, and 
has talked about bread to the yellow hordes of rice-eating 
Asia. Will they ask soon for American wheat ? Let them 
do so; there are unbounded areas for the produce of maize, 
rice and bananas, and nature has so disposed it that none 
shall starve if they bestir themselves. Cotton in Peru can 
supply all comers, sugar in Peru and Mexico also; wine from 
California and even north of that, and from Peru and Chile 
can supply all demands. Chocolate from Ecuador, as it is, 
largely feeds the w^orld with that valuable product, and coffee 
from Guatemala is a famous staple ; cocaine from Peru sup- 
plies the world's markets. Fruit from all the countries of 
the littoral is produced in infinite variety. Indeed, it is one 
of the most remarkable conditions of British Columbia and 
California — the development of horticulture; and in their 
different sphere the tropical countries are lavish producers 
of fruits. Of minerals we have the largest copper and nitrate 
deposits in the world, facing the Pacific Ocean, in Peru and 

A A 



354 THE GREAT PACIFIC COAST 

Chile respectively ; while the gold, silver, coal, and other 
essential matters of commerce are household words of all the 
countries of the littoral. Water-power is another gift of the 
great Cordilleras, from north to south. The heart of man 
may take comfort from all this wealth, a large part of which 
is lying fallow, waiting for him to come and take it. 

And thus, kind reader, we bid farewell to our Great 
Coast — a giant who is but rubbing his eyes from the slumber 
from which the Columbian age awoke him. There rise 
before us the works of man and the works of nature blended 
in our retrospect. The white cliff-like tower-buildings of San 
Francisco, Seattle or Los Angeles, set by the heaving Pacific 
waves ; the white, glorious snow peaks of the Cordilleran 
ranges, from Alaska to Peru and Chile. Smoking volcanoes 
there are, set between them ; fire disputing the realm of ice. 
Lost in the profound forest of the north we have been, and 
we have traversed high bare steppes above the line of tree- 
life in the south. Vast stretches of desert we have toiled 
over, coming down to coasts surf-beaten for thousands of 
miles, between the few, desired havens. Framed between 
our horses' ears are the blue distances and the hills, and our 
footprints are blown from the sand as we pass. We have 
stood upon the water-parting of America, at its highest 
summits, and with veneration have laved our hands in the 
headwaters of its mightiest rivers. Much of satisfaction there 
is in having compassed it ; much of pleasure we feel as we 
contemplate it. And whenever our eyes seek the far horizon 
towards which our faces are ever set we recollect that we are 
all travellers, whether in the abstract or the material world, 
or both ; travellers in a vast field where every earnest foot- 
step serves to set the confines of the known farther and farther 
forward. 



THE END 



INDEX 



Alaska, 4, 43, 242-255, 350 

Almagro, 24 

Alvarado, 25 

Amazon, 9, 257, 274, 301 

Andagoya, 23 

Andes, 5, 257-341 

Arica, 333 

Arizona, 190 

Aztecs. See Mexico 

Balboa, 21 

Bananas, 70 

Behring, Behring Straits, 30, 253 

Bolivia, 324, 333 

British Columbia, 4, 10, 204-241 

Cactus, 191 

California, 4, 11, 25, 26, 31, 108-181 

Callao, 5 

Canadian Pacific Railway, 16, 209, 
224 

Canal of Panama, 45, 351 

Cascade Mountains, 205 

Central America, 56 

Chile, 4, 36, 322-341 

Chimborazo, 264 

Chinamen, 125, 165, 343 

Chocolate, 265, 300. See also Cen- 
tral America 

Cliff-dwellers, 190 

Climatic conditions, 6, 57, 98, 100, 
135, 207, 247, 274, 278, 352 

Coast currents, 7, 207, 265, 274 

Coffee. See Central America 

Colombia, 4, 46, 256 

Colorado River, 5, 25, 183, 187 

Columbia River, 5, 34, 195 

Columbus, 2 

Cook, Captain, 32, 243 

Cordillera, 4 

Cortes, 23 

Costa Rica, 4, 63 

Cotopaxi, 267 



Cotton, 277 

Crime in America, 161, 171 

Cuzco, 267. See Peru 

Drake, 28 

Earthquakes, 14, 178, 261 
Ecuador, 4, 256 

Fisheries, 144, 212 
Franklin, 37, 248 

Fraser River, 5. See British Co- 
lumbia 
Fruit-growing, 149, 219 
Fur companies, 39 

Game, 128, 220 

Golden Gate, 31. See also California 

Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, 16, 

209, 228 
Gray, Captain, 34 
Guatemala, 4, 56, 66 
Guatemoc, 25 
Guayas River, 5, 261 

Hawaii, 243 
Honduras, 4, 66 
Hood, Mount, 98 
Hudson, 32 
Hydrographic system, 6 

Imperial considerations, 232 
Incas, II, 267. See also Peru 
Iquique, 326 
Irish-Americans, 164 
Irrigation, 151, 184, 187, 207, 274, 
279 

Klondyke, 250 
Lewis and Clarke, 35 
Mackenzie River, 39 



355 



356 



INDEX 



Magallanes, 23 

Mexico, 4, II, 24, 36, 43, 72 

Mines, 16, 105, 119, 186, 210, 246, 

260, 291 
Missions of California, 146 
Missouri River, 35 
Mosquitos, 48 
Mount McKinley, 243 

Negroes, 49, 51 

Nevada, 185 

Newspapers, American, 160 

Nicaragua, 4, 64 

Nitrate. See Chile 

North-West Passage, 30, 34, 44 

Oregon, 4, 40, 195 
Origin of the Americans, 2, 30, 343 
'Oroya Railway, 16, 275 

Panama, 4, 45, 58, 256 

Peru, 4, II, 23, 25, 36, 270-321 

Philippine Islands, 249 

Pizarro, 23 

Political corruption, 157 

Prehistoric buildings, 58, 106, 183, 

282 
Prince Rupert, 229 
Puget Sound. See Oregon 

Quito, 264 

Rainfall. See Climate 
Rocky Mountains, 36, 205 
Rubber, 300. See also Central 
America 

Salvador, 4, 65 



San Francisco, 14 
Seals, 246 
Seattle, 202 
Shasta, Mount, 113 
Sierra Nevadas, no 
Slavery, 43, 49 
South America, 11, 2 56- 341 
Spanish power, 27 

Sugar cane. See Central America, 
Mexico, Peru, etc. 

Tacoma, 200 
Tahoe, Lake, 142 
Tehuantepec, 76, 352 
Tiniber, 202, 211, 244, 353 
Titicaca, Lake, 16, 275, 322 
Trans-Andine Railway, 340 
Trees, giant, 112, 137 

Ulloa, 25 

Unexplored territory, 9 

Union Pacific Railway, 115 



See also British 



Valparaiso, 5 
Vancouver, 5, 34. 

Columbia 
Victoria, 221 
Volcanoes, 56, 68 



Washington, 4 

Wheat-shipping, 230 

Whitney, Mount, 113 

Winds, 7 

Wine-making, 152 

Women — Spanish American, 18, 94 

Yosemite valley, 112, 139 
Yukon, 5, 205, 242-255 



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